


All I Need

by CorvusRex



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Adam really does care, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, Angst, Artist Keith (Voltron), Gay Keith (Voltron), Gay Lance (Voltron), Gender-Neutral Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, M/M, Nonbinary Pidge | Katie Holt, Past Substance Abuse, Self-Harm, Song fic, Sort Of, Substance Abuse, Trauma, Urban Fantasy, Witch AU, Witch Keith (Voltron), Witch Lance (Voltron), adashi, but will have a happy ending, klance, past self-harm, slowish burn, they/them pronouns for Pidge
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:15:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28158921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CorvusRex/pseuds/CorvusRex
Summary: Five years after a traumatic event that resulted in Keith losing everything and everyone and the self-destructive spiral that followed, he accepts a job transfer to the big city.  He’s in recovery and more stable than he’s been in years, but his past still haunts him.  When he accidentally rescues an odd man and his cat one night, Keith finds out that not only is the guy a witch, but that so is he.  Keith knows nothing of his origins, having been in the foster care system all his life.  Together, they begin to unravel his true past, but at what cost?~~~~~~~~~~~~~Trigger Warning:  First chapter deals heavily in trauma, self-harm, and substance abuse, off-screen character death, and fire.
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 24





	1. The Downward Spiral

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just reiterating the trigger warnings. The first chapter covers Keith's traumatic past, his downward spiral into substance abuse, and subsequent recovery. Please, please, take the trigger warnings seriously. It's also pretty dense, with only a few scenes with dialogue. The rest of the story won't be like this, but there's a lot to get through before I can get there.

Keith tried to get out. He went for the door to his bedroom, but nearly burned himself on the hot metal of the doorknob. His family had turned the attic of their old family home into an enviable bedroom when they had adopted him at 14. He was 20 now, and majoring in art at a local college. But that was going to come to an end if he couldn’t escape the fire. He had to hold on to the hope that his parents had gotten out. They had been the first foster family he’d ever had who genuinely loved him. They worked tirelessly to gain his trust, and he could honestly say that he loved them back. So they had to make it. He couldn’t lose another family.

Smoke was curling around the door and into his room. He backed away, trying to put some distance between himself and the fire. But there was only so far he could go. His back hit the cool glass of his window, and he made the mistake of looking outside. The fire department hadn’t come yet, but he could see the lights in the distance. Not that it mattered anymore. He could tell that the entire house below him was engulfed in flames, and was quickly spreading to the attic. Keith looked around desperately for some way to get out, but he was too high to jump safely, and he’d already tried the door. He was trapped with no way out.

He thought about texting his friends one more time, letting them know what was happening, but couldn’t bring himself to say goodbye. Keith sat on the floor, running his fingers over the half-finished painting he’d left there. It felt appropriate in a way. Much like the art, his life would be unfinished. He had no way to escape, so he went back to work on it, giving himself a distraction until either the smoke or flames took him. Because one of them had to; that’s how fires worked. Even if the fire had stopped spreading and the smoke hadn’t gone any farther than curling around the edges of his door. He appreciated the irony of the painting’s subject. He had been taking a class that semester on mythology as an elective, and the painting was part of a project for the class. His chosen topic was the phoenix.

It had felt appropriate at the time, rising from the ashes of being found abandoned as an infant with only a note containing his name and birthdate, multiple failed foster families, and then being reborn when he was finally adopted. He huffed a laugh as he realized that a real, actual fire was going to be his ending.

Keith snapped up from his work when he heard the sound of the sirens filtering through the roar and crackle of the flames. The fire department had come. His parents would be outside. They would tell the firefighters that their son was still inside. They would get him out and he would be reunited with the only real family he had ever known.

He could hear them outside, fighting the fire. Keith didn’t know how intense the flames were, maybe they had to contain it some before they could safely get him out? His bedroom window, the ones that weren’t skylights anyway, faced the backyard, so they wouldn’t be able to see him. Maybe they didn’t know yet. Keith decided to stay there and continue working and wait.

He waited for what felt like hours. His painting was nearly finished by the time the ladder appeared at his window. He could see through the firefighter’s mask how utterly shocked they were to see him in his still intact bedroom, in his pajamas, working on his painting on the floor. Laying his brush down, he got up and opened the window.

The firefighter couldn’t form words, only motioned for him to follow them. He did, and when he reached the ground, he was told not to look. Don’t look at the house, don’t look at the other ambulances, just go where they wanted. The paramedics checked him over, finding nothing except for a mild burn on his hand from where he’d touched the doorknob. Keith hadn’t even noticed it. They treated the burn, and when they were done, he asked.

“Where are my parents? Jillian and Charlotte Westlake? They were inside.”

The paramedic shared a look with one of the firefighters. “I’m sorry,” he said, “They didn’t make it out.”

Shock and grief hit him fast and hard. He could feel the hot, thick tears falling. “No. They had to. They have to be – I can’t do this again.” He barely made it out of the ambulance before the wave of nausea overtook him. He hadn’t even realized that he was still crying and shaking until the paramedic wrapped a blanket around his shoulders and led him back to the ambulance.

“Is there anyone you can call? Any family?”

Keith tried to pull himself together enough to answer. “I – I, um – maybe. Maybe my Mom Charlotte’s cousin.”

“Ok. Do you know their number?”

“Um, no. I know it’s in my phone. Can I get it?”

The firefighter stepped closer. “I’ll have to check if we can get back up there. The house may not be structurally sound enough to risk it.” She left, returning a few long minutes later. “Well, it looks like that as bad as the fire was, the frame is still intact. You’ll be able to clear out your room in a few days, but for now, one of us can get anything you need right away.”

Keith nodded. “I have a smaller suitcase in my closet, and my bag with all my school stuff is by my bed. Just be careful of the painting on the floor. It’s still wet.”

The firefighter was the same one who had gotten him out, so she knew what he meant. The paramedic was completely lost. When the firefighter left, he turned to Keith.

“I don’t know why, but my bedroom in the attic isn’t burned. I was painting when she came to get me. I didn’t think I was going to get out. At least it was something I could focus on. I thought my Moms had gotten out. I thought it was just me. I wanted them to be ok.” The tears started again, and this time he couldn’t stop them.

By the time the firefighter came back, he was sniffling and numb, the initial shock wearing down. She handed him his phone, leaving the rest inside the ambulance. He couldn’t bring himself to look at his lock screen, a picture of himself and his Moms at the show his college’s art department held every spring. They were standing in front of his part of the exhibition, a temporary wall full of his paintings behind them. He quickly pressed his thumb to the fingerprint, unlocking his phone. He found Charlotte’s cousin in his contacts, and called the only part of either of Jillian or Charlotte’s families they were still in contact with.

Adam Westlake picked up on the third ring. “Keith? Why are you calling so late? Is everything ok?” He sounded genuinely concerned, and Keith knew he was. It wasn’t like him to call at whatever time it was. It was late, he knew that much.

“I’m – no – It-it’s not ok. They – they asked if there was family I could call – and-and I – they’re gone. They’re gone, Adam.”

The line was silent for a few seconds as Adam tried to figure out what Keith was trying to say. There was nothing sane he could come up with as to why Keith would be calling him at two in the morning. “Who’s gone? Keith, what happened?”

“A fire. There was a fire. I don’t know why. But Mom, Mama Jill, they didn’t make it out. They’re gone, Adam.”

“Where are you now?” Keith could hear sounds of Adam moving around.

“I’m still here. At the house. I haven’t left yet.”

“Ok, I’m assuming they’ll be taking you to the hospital. Which one are they going to?”

Keith looked to the paramedic, who guessed what the question was. “Arus General,” he said.

It was the closest, and named for the town they were in. Arus was a mid-sized town, right between more densely populated areas and the rural towns to south and west. It was the place Keith had called home for the last six years, but he once again didn’t know where he would end up.

“It’s um, Arus General,” Keith answered.

“Ok. I’ll be there,” Adam said and hung up. He lived in Olkarion, the city not too far from Arus, and would be able to get to the hospital in less than an hour.

Keith turned his phone off entirely. “He’s on the way,” he said to the paramedic.

He nodded and helped get Keith settled in the back of the ambulance. The doors closed, and the ambulance pulled away from what was left of Keith’s only real home. He couldn’t look away from it until they finally turned a corner and it disappeared from sight.

Adam came that night, promising to take care of things. He would organize the funeral, talk to the lawyer, get his cousin and her wife’s wills sorted, and there was no way he was going to leave Keith on his own, new boyfriend or not. Adam definitely liked the guy he was seeing, but family was more important, his boyfriend would just have to accept that. He got Keith into therapy, kept him in school, tried to keep everything as normal as possible.

It worked for a while. Takashi, or Shiro as everyone who wasn’t Adam or his parents called him, was fully supportive when Adam explained the situation. He tried to help wherever he could, and he and Keith became close. But it wasn’t close enough. Neither Shiro nor Adam knew just how much losing his parents had affected Keith. It started to unravel with a forgotten razor.

Keith was cutting to relieve his emotional pain. He was careful, knowing that Adam and Shiro would never understand. He never let them see his cuts, and kept the razors well hidden. But one night, after another bout of heavy drinking, Keith had left one of his razor blades in the bathroom, bloody. There wasn’t much Adam and Shiro could do about Keith’s drinking, he was 21 by then. They tried to limit how much he went through in one night when he was home, but he had a hidden stash of booze they didn’t know about.

But they just didn’t understand. The pain wasn’t going to go away. He needed to kill it. Cutting helped when he was numb and couldn’t feel anything. Drinking helped when he felt too much. Sometimes instead of pain, he had anxiety attacks that could last for days. None of the medications his therapist had prescribed ever worked, and he gave up on them, choosing to self-medicate. He still had his own car from before the fire, and he would go to the empty field near where his parents’ house had been, and would stay there, letting the interior of his car become a fishbowl. It would calm the anxiety, but then he would feel too much or not at all and end up drinking or cutting, or both.

Eventually, it wasn’t enough. He was cutting more, drinking more, smoking more. There were times, Keith was finding, where he wanted to feel more. Something that wasn’t pain or numbness. He started hitting clubs, partying harder, getting high, and letting himself get lost in sensation. Then he was sleeping around constantly, using sex as a replacement for real human connection. They couldn’t understand him. No one could.

He had made it back to Adam’s condo one night, his high fading, and he hit his vodka stash, drinking until he couldn’t feel anymore. That was when the razor came back out. Somewhere, he remembered to get to the bathroom so he could lock the door. He pulled up his sleeves, staring at the crosshatch of scars and partially healed cuts. The razor sliced through them, making new lines, thick red blood pouring down his arms. He secretly hoped that one day he would have the balls to just end himself, but something kept him from going through with it.

When he felt drained enough to sleep, he stumbled back to his room, the razor blade forgotten. He was woken only a few hours later by Adam charging into his room, wanting to know why there was a bloody razor blade in the bathroom.

 _Fuck!_ Keith mentally cursed himself when he was aware enough to decipher what was happening. But he wasn’t quite aware enough to hide it. He knew how he looked. He had been out partying the night before, and it was obvious. He may have come down from his high, but he still had the vodka he’d downed running through his system, and his cuts were barely dry. He couldn’t even remember the name of the guy he’d fucked, if he’d ever known it. He snapped back to the present when he realized Adam still wanted an answer.

When he didn’t get one, Adam sat down on his bed. “Keith, what’s going on with you?” he asked gently, “I want to help with this. Tell me what you need. Please. I can’t stop you doing whatever it is you're doing; I know I can’t. But I can tell that you’re hurting. I know that you’re trying to run from it, but it won’t help in the long run. I know you’re an adult now, but you're still Charlotte’s son. I promised that I would help after the fire, and I’ve been trying, but I can’t if you won’t tell me what’s going on.”

One unwritten rule between them was that they wouldn’t say their names, or mention the fire directly. They could talk about how Keith was feeling about it, but never their names or the thing that took them. Keith wanted to be furious with Adam for bringing it up, but what he said, the gentleness of his tone, and his sincerity at wanting to help took the fight out of him. He lay in his bed, letting the tears flow for the first time since the fire. And then he slowly pulled his sleeves up.

Adam stared in horror at what Keith had been hiding for months. In the harsh light of his bedroom and the morning light pouring in the windows, he could see everything. Older scars now turning white, newer ones, still pink and raw, partially healed cuts no more than a week old, and the new, red, angry cuts only hours old. Keith's arms were covered. Adam was afraid of where else he may have cut himself.

“Yeah,” Keith said through his tears, “It’s bad. I know. It’s worse than you think.” He stared at the ceiling, unable to stop the words pouring out like his blood had done. “It’s not just cutting. I know you know that I’ve been drinking, but you don’t know how much. Not at all. Or about the drugs. Or the sex. I don’t want to forget them, but I can’t live with this pain anymore. I can’t keep going like this anymore. But nothing I do is enough. No matter what I do, the pain just comes back. I haven’t been hungover in months because I'm never not drinking. I go out and party constantly. I don’t know how many guys I've slept with. I might have known some of their names, but it’s not like it’s important; I’ll never see them again. I cut to feel, I drink to kill the pain, I smoke to calm down, I party and get high to feel something that isn’t constant pain, and I've turned into a total slut because I can’t remember how to be around people. I know my grades are shit; I don’t even know how I haven’t failed out of school yet. I'm broken. I'm a broken mess, and I don’t know how to get back from my own private hell.”

It had been only six months since Jillian and Charlotte died in that fire. It had been in September, barely a month away from Keith’s 21st birthday. It was now March, and Adam couldn’t wrap his head around everything that Keith was admitting. But he knew he needed to do something. Keith was desperate for help, but didn’t know how to ask. He’d had the only real family he’d ever known taken from him and he’d self-destructed. Adam had thought that maybe the therapy had been helping, but he could see now that it hadn’t. Keith needed something stronger. He needed the kind of help that Adam wasn’t able to give.

Adam worked in the mental health field as a psychiatrist himself, and knew what trauma looked like. He also knew, objectively, what addiction looked like, but Keith was too close for him to be able to see it. Adam looked at the used razor blade in his hand and made a decision. He would call his office and have the receptionist reschedule all his appointments for the day, “due to a family emergency” as he told her; it was absolutely the truth. And after he knew Keith was safe and away from access to his addictions, Adam would search through his contacts and find out who among his colleagues could help best with this.

But first he called Shiro. “Takashi, I need you to help me with something and it can’t wait.”

“What happened?” Shiro asked. He could hear the sadness, worry, and fear in Adam’s voice.

“I – maybe it’s better if you see for yourself. It’s Keith. He’s worse than we could have ever thought. I can’t leave him alone. It’s not safe. I need you to stay with him while I take care of something.”

“Ok. I’ll be right there.”

Adam had gotten Keith from his room and downstairs to the living room sofa. He was changed, showered, fed – Adam had insisted and wouldn’t take no for an answer – and wrapped up on the couch when Shiro walked in. Adam had said it was bad, but Keith looked like death. Shiro didn’t know that someone as pale as Keith could look worse, but he did. He looked to Adam, who looked to Keith.

“I need to tell him what’s going on, ok?” Adam asked.

Keith nodded, barely, feeling the effects of a lack of substances in his system.

“I found out this morning that Keith has been cutting. Extensively. And then I found out about how bad his drinking is. And then about the drugs. And about unprotected sex with an unknown number of partners. It’s so much worse than I could have ever thought.”

They both could see the shock and horror on Shiro’s face.

“I need you to stay here while I go upstairs to my office and find out who can best help with this.”

Shiro nodded silently, and Adam took the stairs two at a time up to his office. Shiro settled himself in the deep armchair on one side of the sofa. He didn’t say anything; he didn’t even know what he could say. He didn’t have to.

“I fucked up. I know I did,” Keith said quietly after a few minutes, “I just wanted to go back to normal. I wanted the pain to stop. And I fucked up.”

“You didn’t fuck up. You can get through this. What happened, it was awful. There’s no getting around that. And how you reacted to it wasn’t healthy, but you can get better. No one’s giving up on you. We’re going to do whatever we have to to help. You’ll come out of this stronger than before.”

Keith didn’t respond, but Shiro could hear his soft sniffles. After a few minutes, he asked, in the smallest voice Shiro had ever heard out of him, “Why? Why did it happen? Why was I left alone? You didn’t see my room. The fire stopped at the top of the stairs. The fire marshal said it didn’t make sense. There was nothing stopping it from spreading. I know they’re still investigating. I think they think I did it. That I set the fire. But I didn’t. I could never do that. Whoever I am, wherever I came from, they were my real family. I was found abandoned when I was only three weeks old. They found a note with me, but all it had was my name and my birthdate. Did Adam ever tell you that?”

Shiro was stunned again. “No. He didn’t. I didn’t know. But I do know that you didn’t start that fire. And I know that you’re better than your problems. And that you’re one of the best people I've ever met. Your addiction doesn’t define you, and you can come back from this.”

“You really believe that?” Keith was still curled in on himself emotionally, but the disbelief in his voice was still apparent.

“I do,” Shiro answered, “How are you feeling?”

“Like shit. I was out partying last night before I came back. Then I started drinking and cutting again. I probably would have kept doing all this shit until it killed me if I hadn’t left that razor.”

“Somehow I don’t think you could have.” It was all Shiro said, no explanation, no elaboration. It shouldn’t have made sense, but somehow it did.

Keith fell asleep soon after that, woken sometime later by Shiro gently shaking him. He gasped, startled by the sudden movement.

“Hey,” Shiro said softly, “You were shaking and talking in your sleep.”

Keith blinked, the world around him coming into focus. “What did I say?” he asked.

Shiro hesitated briefly, but Keith saw it. “I don’t know. You were mumbling. But it seemed like it wasn’t a pleasant dream.”

Keith wanted to press the issue, wanted to know what he had said that made Shiro not want to tell him, but Adam came back down, a notepad in hand.

“Ok. So, I ended up getting put in contact with Dr. Sylvia Ryner. She runs Olkari Rehab Centre. She said that they’ll have a spot for you at the end of the week, and that in the meantime, you should be checked into the hospital, just in case of any sudden adverse reactions to the lack of substances. She also said to expect withdrawal to be a bitch – my words, not hers – and that you’ll probably be hating everything for a while – also my words,” he said, running down the notes he had made.

“So, what’s the plan?” Shiro asked.

“The plan right now is to go get everything packed up and get Keith into the hospital. Dr. Ryner will call me either tomorrow or the day after and we’ll get registration done for Olkari Centre. She’s calling the hospital to get you set up for inpatient for the next few days. So, we just need to get you packed up. Can you make it up the stairs on your own?” Adam answered, turning to Keith at the end.

“Yeah, I think so,” Keith said, still waking up.

He pulled himself up slowly, the pounding in his head from the hangover increasing. His steps were shaky, but he managed. Adam and Shiro followed him closely in case his tenuous grasp on remaining upright failed. Upon reaching his room, he sat on his bed, reaching underneath. There was a tearing sound, and he pulled out a duct tape covered box, then did the same on the back of his nightstand, retrieving a smaller box. He handed them both to Adam, and the sound of glass bottles from the larger box was unmistakable. Adam realized sadly that he was being given Keith’s secret stash of alcohol and drugs. The last thing he did was to open the drawer for one last box. The one that held the razor blades. Keith placed it on top of the other boxes.

“I don’t ever want to see those again. I never meant for any of this to happen. I don’t want to be like this. I want to get back to the way I was. I don’t think that will ever happen, but I want to get as close as I can.”

Adam put the boxes down, dropping to the bed beside Keith, wrapping his cousin in a tight hug. “I know you didn’t. But you're getting the help you need now. You’ll make it through. I owe it to the three of you. Charlotte and Jillian would never forgive me if they thought I wasn’t looking out for you. You don’t have to be blood. You're family.”

Keith held on as hard as he could in his weakened state. “I miss them,” he whispered.

“So do I. We always will. Best we can do is live for them. Let’s get you packed up,” Adam responded softly. He pulled away, and Keith nodded definitively.

Not wanting Keith to overexert himself, he stayed on his bed while Adam and Shiro took direction. Packing took longer than it might have otherwise, but they got there in the end. Sweats, pajamas, hoodies, and t-shirts all went into a suitcase, along with his favorite pillows and blankets. Keith’s backpack and messenger bag were packed with his art supplies and laptop. Adam looked at him questioningly, but Keith said that he wanted to keep up with schoolwork as much as he could, and would be emailing his professors and more or less letting them know what the situation was, and asking for his assignments for the rest of the semester.

Keith felt like death, and he knew it wouldn’t be getting any better any time soon. He was well aware that recovery would take time, just like his addictions hadn’t started overnight. But now that everything was out in the open, he wanted to own his recovery. He had meant what he said; he hadn’t meant for it to get like it had. He wanted the pain of loss to stop, and his tools were wrong. Now he just needed to step back and find the right ones.

Adam got him checked into the hospital, where Keith stayed for the next four days. Dr. Ryner called the day after his admission, and Adam came by his room to get the registration and admission forms for Olkari Rehab Centre filled out and returned. Those first four days were just as miserable as promised, and Keith didn’t get any of the schoolwork he had intended finished. He spent all of those days curled up in bed, dealing with chills, shaking, nausea. His entire body hurt. He could barely get up and needed a nurse just to make sure he could get to the bathroom without falling.

There hadn’t been any serious reactions by Friday, and he was discharged from the hospital and Adam picked him up and brought him over to Olkari Rehab. The facility was different than whatever he may have been expecting. Had he been able to give it thought, he probably would have thought it would be hospital-like, sterile and uninviting. But it wasn’t. Soft creams and greens, natural woods, soft furniture. It felt like a retreat from reality. A space that encouraged healing.

Keith was greeted by a tall, thin woman with grey hair in a low ponytail. She introduced herself as Sylvia Ryner. She had warm hazel eyes that sparkled with intelligence and kindness. She showed him to his room, decorated in the same tones as the rest of the building. She gave him a brief rundown of how his treatment would go. Individual therapy, group therapy, various classes for mind and body – tai chi, yoga, meditation. Olkari was a holistic facility, she explained, and treated mind, body, and soul. No religion was compulsory, but if you had one, it would be encouraged as long as it wasn’t harmful. Keith hadn’t ever had religion in his life, but aspects of spirituality appealed to him, and Sylvia said that there was a library where he could look into that more if he chose.

Before she left him to settle in, Sylvia said that Adam had explained Keith’s situation and what had led him down the path of addiction. She had only brought it up to reassure him that more personal aspects of his addiction didn’t have to be shared in a group setting if it made him uncomfortable. He would have an individual therapist to help with that.

That room became his personal space for the next six months. While he had learned the tools for recovery from substance abuse within the standard three months, the underlying problems hadn’t been fully treated, and Sylvia worried that without more intense therapy, he would find himself at the bottom of another bottle. So he stayed. He continued with the classes he had begun, finding the meditation calming mentally, and yoga calming physically. Keith was no longer going to group therapy, but instead having daily sessions with his individual therapist, who had ended up being Sylvia herself.

Keith told her about the earliest anyone knew about him. Being found as a three-week-old newborn in cold November temperatures with a note outside a fire station. The note holding nothing more than his name and birthdate. It was handwritten, but nothing could be discerned from the note, not even the potential gender of the writer. It had stated that his name was Keith Kogane and that he had been born on October 23rd. He had been found exactly three weeks after that date on November 13th.

He told her about the ten different foster families he had cycled through in fourteen years. How they had all found him odd. He was too quiet, too reserved. He was polite enough, but something was always _wrong_. Every one of them had called his social worker eventually and said that it wasn’t going to work out. He had about given up ever finding a family when he was fostered one more time by Jillian and Charlotte Westlake. The two families before them hadn’t necessarily said so to him, but he knew they didn’t approve of him being gay. But Jillian and Charlotte welcomed him readily. They had fostered before, but it was always temporary, and not by their choice. He felt that that aspect of himself was accepted by them – how could it not be, they were married lesbians – but he was cautious. They wouldn’t let that deter them, however, and worked night and day to win him over. It took them almost a year, but he finally opened up to them. And when he did, he found the family he truly belonged in. Before that first year was officially over, he was calling them Mom and Mama Jill. They weren’t able to adopt him officially for a few months, but when they looked back on it, all three of them considered that first day to be when they became a family.

And then there was that night back in September. He had been in bed asleep. He still didn’t know what had woken him up. There was no indication that anything was wrong. At first, he thought it might have been a dream or something. But then he noticed the smell. Smoke and fire. He had tried to get out, but the fire had spread to the attic stairs. He couldn’t get out, and had sat down with a painting to wait for rescue or death. The fire department were on their way, so he had thought that his parents had escaped but couldn’t get to him. He didn’t find out until he was on the ground that they hadn’t and that he was the only survivor.

Keith told her about his spiral into addiction and the investigation that accused him of arson. How he was dealing with the trauma of losing the only real home and family he had ever known and then accused of being the one who had killed them. How they had decided that it was supposed to be a murder-suicide, but that for whatever reason, the fire stopped before it got to him. But ultimately, there had been no evidence at all of arson, even if they still didn’t know what caused the fire.

He finished his story with telling her about the last night. Keith had gone out that night to one of the clubs he frequented. He had gotten high, prowled the dance floor until he found someone, and then gone off to some corner or other for another hookup. Once he was done there it was late, and he headed back home. But he was feeling too much again, and dipped into his secret alcohol stash, drinking steadily until he became numb. But that was wrong, too, and he pulled out another razor blade and cut until he had drained himself emotionally and passed out in bed. In his high and drunk state, he had forgotten the razor blade in the bathroom where Adam found it. He had come into Keith's bedroom that morning and confronted him. He admitted everything, feeling freer than he had in months. And that was when Adam had called Sylvia. She knew the rest of the story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Greetings, supernatural creatures! I got the inspiration for this while listening to All I Need from Within Temptation. These are the events that have shaped Keith into the person he has become. After this, the story will continue and begin to explain things that he doesn't have answers for. This entire first chapter just poured out over the course of a weekend and has been sitting on my hard drive since then. The second chapter followed pretty quickly, but I can tell you now that this will be slow to update since Our Life in Pictures takes priority right now. That one may be pure fluff, but this one is a bit angsty. Be warned!
> 
> -Corvus


	2. A Second Chance

When those six months were over, the fall semester had already started. After getting signed up for classes, he found his professors’ emails and written them, explaining his situation and letting them know that, while he would be missing the first couple weeks of classes, he wanted to follow along with assignments and classwork so as not to miss anything. He had attached a letter from Sylvia, backing him up. Only one professor was reluctant, but a separate email from Sylvia convinced him.

Adam and Shiro both came in the morning of his last day, helping to get him packed up to finally go home. Keith said his goodbyes to therapists and instructors, the librarian, and other patients he had gotten to know. Sylvia told him with a fond smile that she never wanted to see him again. He knew what she meant, and agreed with the sentiment. She added that she would always be available if he needed to talk, and hugged him. The last thing he did before leaving Olkari Rehab Centre was give Sylvia the finished painting he had been working on during the fire. This was his second rebirth, and he wanted the woman who helped make it possible to know that in no uncertain terms. She studied the phoenix with awe, even more fully understanding what the last six months had meant to him.

Shiro had suggested to Adam that Keith might not want to come back to his bedroom the way it had been when he left, and Adam agreed. They got Keith settled into the guest room, and headed out shopping for an entire new bedroom the next day. His room was redecorated, and he got settled back into his second real home.

The next Monday, he got settled into his classes, bringing in the physical work he had only been able to scan or send pictures of. His old friends were gone, either having graduated, changed schools for various reasons, or no longer wanted to associate with him. He understood the ones that were still there distancing themselves from him; he hadn’t been exactly pleasant to be around by the end. But he made new friends, even if he kept them at arm’s length for a while. 

The biggest accomplishment of the semester, socially at least, was beginning to date again. He took it slow, not allowing himself to move too quickly. His new boyfriend Braeden said he understood that there were things in Keith’s past that he didn’t want to talk about, and that he wanted to take things more slowly. But after three months, he began to lose patience with Keith, wanting him to either take their relationship to the next, physical, level, or explain better what had happened that could leave him the way he was. Keith couldn’t do either, not feeling comfortable sharing details of his parents’ death and his spiral into substance abuse, or the addiction to sex that left him hesitant to begin a physical relationship. Braeden said that he had tried to understand, but that he couldn’t stay in a relationship where it felt like he didn’t really know Keith.

It had hurt, but Keith was able to recover from it with help. He was still seeing a therapist weekly, continued with yoga classes, meditating on his own, and he knew he could trust both Adam and Shiro. Part of his discharge requirements from Olkari were that Adam would check through Keith's bedroom weekly, and Keith fully agreed to that. He knew that for his recovery to be successful, he needed to be held accountable.

The spring semester was his last, and he graduated with a degree in art like he’d been planning. He started an online store with prints of his original paintings. It was slow to start, and while it was gaining momentum, he got a job as an illustrator, designing character concepts for a small game developer. He needed to relearn digital art, but he enjoyed it. He wasn’t tied to an office most of the time, and the slightly flexible hours allowed him to continue with his online business. His life was truly getting better.

It wasn’t without problems, however. He had occasions when stress would get to him and he would start feeling the need for his old vices. He always made sure to tell Adam, Shiro, and his therapist when it started up again, used the tools he’d learned, meditated when he needed it, and practiced yoga more often. It wouldn’t kill the old itch, but he could let it be until it faded on its own.

He continued to rebuild his life for the next two and a half years. His online store for prints of his original work did a steady business, and he stayed with his job at the game developer. At the end of those two and a half years, the gaming company was bought by a larger developer, and Keith was given two options – lose the job he had in Olkarion, or move to Altea and stay working for the company. It was a hard choice. He loved his job, and didn’t want to have to leave the company, but the offices in Olkarion were closing as a part of the deal. Moving to Altea had its own set of problems. He would be separated from his supports. He would need to find a new therapist, would have to leave Adam and Shiro behind. He’d never once lived on his own. He would be in a new city not knowing anyone.

He and Shiro had grown closer, and he was the one who eventually gave Keith the push he needed. Shiro reminded him that he and Adam were always a call or text away if he needed them, that he’d continued to do well with therapy and using the tools he’d learned from rehab, and that maybe it was time for him to experience life on his own. He gave Keith time to think it over, keeping in mind the deadline he had with his company. One day before the deadline, he called the office in Altea and accepted the transfer.

The three of them, Keith, Adam, and Shiro, made the hour drive to Altea to tour apartments in Keith’s price range. After seeing four different apartments over the weekend, they found the perfect one on the fifth try. It left Keith with a ten-minute drive to his office, the building had designated parking, and most basic things were in walking distance from the apartment. Keith left that afternoon with a copy of his new lease.

Adam and Shiro helped him move, and he quickly settled into his new apartment. The new company was bigger than the last, and he found himself with stricter deadlines and bigger projects, but he was enjoying the pace, and found that it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle. Keith was rightfully proud of himself for handling the change as well as he had. His old therapist had recommended a new one, and he was on the short list to wait for an opening. It came within the month, and he was able to take Friday afternoons off for his therapy sessions.

One night after work, he took a walk around his neighborhood, trying not to think about the date. It was five years exactly since the fire. He couldn’t get away from it, no matter what he did. He found himself thinking about his parents. What would they think of him now? What would they think of what he’d become? What he’d been through? He believed they would be proud of him. That they would support his decision to move and live on his own. That they would love him no matter what, even with the problems he’d had. He was broken from his thoughts by a sound. No, not a sound, a voice.

“Red! Come on, girl. I’m not chasing you anymore. Get back here so we can go home. Blue’s worried, you know she is.”

Keith looked up and out into the street. If modern ren faire was a clothing style, this guy had it. He was wearing jeans, but they were tucked into mid-calf length, brown lace up boots. He had a basic, sky blue t-shirt on under what looked like a way more streamlined and closer-fitting version of a pirate shirt. It was mid-September and starting to get colder in the evening, but he didn’t look like he was cold at all. He had a small, brown leather messenger bag worn cross-body as well. He was facing away, so all Keith could tell about physical characteristics was that he was tall, looked thin, had dark hair, and could tell, as he had his sleeves rolled up, that he had skin like amber. Keith knew to expect all sorts of people in a large city, but this was something else.

Watching the odd scene was interrupted by the distinct feeling that Keith needed to get him out of the middle of the street. Without a thought, he rushed forward, grabbed the guy, and yanked him backwards and back onto the sidewalk at the exact moment a car came speeding around the corner and lost control, crashing into the line of parked cars on the next block. Alarms blazed, and a startled pedestrian whipped their phone out. They could almost hear the panicked sound of a 911 call.

“Holy fuck,” he breathed, “How did you know about that car?”

“I didn’t,” Keith said, “I just got the feeling that I needed to do what I did.” He felt something brushing his leg. It was a cat, large and fluffy, a mottled orange, cinnamon, and brown. “This your cat?”

The other guy looked down. “Red! What the fuck!” He narrowed his, now that Keith could see him, startlingly blue eyes at the the cat. “Are you fucking serious?!”

The cat sat on the sidewalk, ignoring him. One ear flicked and she yawned, showing off her sharp teeth.

“Um,” Keith started, “Is this normal?”

“No! Well, yes, actually, but not like this. She doesn’t run off into the middle of the street. Usually.” He pulled his sleeves down like he was suddenly self-conscious, but the feeling was gone as quickly as it had come.

Red rubbed against Keith’s leg again, meowing softly. He bent down to pet her and she leaned into it, purring.

The strange guy, who Keith could only assume was her owner, crossed his arms and huffed. “Traitor.”

Keith stood, and they found themselves meeting eye to eye. Something about that startled Red’s human, and he gasped, blue eyes blowing wide. He stared for a full few seconds before an odd look crossed his face.

He calmed his expression, his face becoming neutral. “Sorry. I should at least introduce myself. I’m Lance McClain.” He held his hand out tentatively, as if he were afraid of the contact.

“Keith Kogane,” Keith said as he took it, made nervous by Lance’s reaction.

The instant their skin made contact, Keith found himself standing in the nothingness of space. But instead of it being cold and empty, it was warm, comforting. He felt something that he couldn’t identify, but felt instinctively familiar. He was ripped from the – the what? – vision? – out of body experience? Keith had no answers for what he had just experienced. Lance was staring at him, confusion and wonder fighting for dominance on his face. Whatever was happening was unlike anything Keith had ever experienced.

“Do you ever find things happening around you that you can’t explain?” Lance asked.

“Like what?” Keith had no idea what that could mean. What kind of things? Like, shit happens kind of things, or like, Harry Potter-level things? With what had just happened, he was guessing it was the second.

“Like finding what you need when you need it the most. Hitting all the green lights when you're running late. Putting up with asshole coworkers only for them to end up with the shit jobs no one wants. Never losing that one sock in the dryer. Or maybe you're totally incapable of killing a houseplant. Having a natural affinity for animals or children. So much so that they’ll find you even when you hadn’t seen them. That kind of things.”

So, yeah, Harry Potter-level shit, only more subtle. But Keith realized that it was true. All of it. He never should have survived that fire, but he did. His entire family died, but he was almost unscathed. For a while, they had thought that he had set the fire, until it was proven that there was no sign of arson. The fire was an unfortunate accident, no one’s fault.

Realization dawning, he nodded. “Yeah. All the time.”

Lance looked around, realizing that they weren’t alone. Police and paramedics were all over the crashed car, the driver was drunk, but physically unharmed. He grabbed Keith by the arm, dragging him down a side street. Keith ripped his arm free, stopping where he was.

Lance stopped as well, and turned back to him. “We need to get somewhere safe,” he said without explanation.

It wasn’t needed after that, and Keith followed him without question. The side street was a dead end, and Lance unlocked the door at the end of the street. Red darted inside, her mewls echoed by another cat somewhere inside. Keith could best describe the interior as organized chaos. It looked like it might have been set up as some kind of shop, but not one anyone would be able to find if they didn’t already know of its existence. Bottles with oddly colored contents lined some shelves, books on others, bundled herbs, crystals, candles, and other things that Keith couldn’t identify were either hanging, on shelves, countertops, tables, and some looked like they were floating.

Lance dropped his leather satchel on the only clear surface. He sighed and turned to Keith. “I think you might be a witch. Actually, no – I know you’re a witch. But it’s passed down through family lines. Who are your parents?” He knew that was an intrusive question, but it needed to be asked.

“I don’t know. Who my birth parents are, anyway. I was found abandoned as a newborn. Why the fuck am I telling you any of this?”

“Because it’s important.”

“I was adopted, but I still have the name I was found with.”

Lance stopped. “Wait. The name you were found with?”

Keith nodded. “I was found abandoned when I was three weeks old. The note that was with me only had my name and birthdate.”

“Ok, this is really important. Do you still have that note?”

Keith had to think about it. Where was it when the fire happened? At the bank, he realized. In the safety deposit box. That meant that it was either in with various documents he brought with him when he moved from Olkarion, or it was still there in Adam’s condo.

“I might have it in my apartment. If it’s not there, it’ll be at my cousin’s place in Olkarion.”

Lance’s eyes darted back and forth as if he were reading. “Ok,” he said to himself, “I think I can find it. Guessing it’s within a five-block radius. That’s not too far. It’ll be tied to, well, yeah, it would be. Ok, not hard.” He looked up at Keith. “I need to see your left arm. That is your dominant hand, right?”

“I’m ambidextrous, I don’t actually have a dominant hand, but I do tend to favor that one. But no, I can’t do that. I don’t let anyone see that.”

Lance looked genuinely confused. “Why?” he asked.

“I’m – I'm not proud of what’s there, or why. No one’s seen that in four years. I’m better now, but still.”

“Ok. I do understand. Really, I do. There are some things not even magic can fix.” He pulled his left sleeve up, revealing several old scars, all parallel across the width of his wrist.

Keith knew that Lance really did understand, and pulled up his own left sleeve, and then the right. Both of his arms were still covered in the crosshatch of white scars he’d given himself.

Lance ran his fingers over them. “I keep mine as a reminder, but you don’t have to. I can make these disappear forever, if you want. I mean, I totally get it if you don’t, but I can.”

“I – I don’t know. Today – today is – this is the anniversary of when I lost my adopted family.” He tried to keep himself together, but it was proving difficult.

“I'm sorry. For that, and that all this had to happen today.”

Keith blinked back the tears he was fighting. Then a thought occurred to him. About the fire. About what had happened to him. About what had happened with the fire and the house. He had never had any answers to that, and maybe Lance could help him figure it out.

“Actually, there’s something related to that that you might be able to help with. I lost my parents in a fire. My room was in the attic. The entire house burned, but the frame was left intact and structurally sound. But the thing that no one has ever been able to explain, aside from that, is that my room was left untouched. The fire just stopped at the top of the stairs. Left me completely alone. I had a mild burn from where I’d tried to get out and touched the doorknob, but I was completely fine otherwise. Confused the fuck out of the small-town fire department to the point where they thought I’d set the fire.”

“I don’t know, but it could have been your own magic that stopped it. Either that, or it could have been some kind of protection spell, but I don’t think it’s likely. Sounds like it was your own magic that protected you. Without it being awakened, it would have a more limited range, and likely could have only extended as far as it did. I would have to be there to get a better idea, but I’m guessing it doesn’t exist anymore.”

“Actually,” Keith said, “It does. The remains of the house are still there. Technically, I own it, since my parents left it to me in their will anyway. No contractor wants it. Everyone who goes to see it ends up leaving. But you wanted my left arm for something?”

Lance shook his head. “Oh. Right.” He pulled a sharpie out of his bag.

Keith raised an eyebrow. “Sharpie?”

“Ok, that was seriously one of the most unrealistic things about Harry Potter. Yeah, I saw them. Ok, yes, I may have read all the books, too. Don’t judge me.”

Keith tried to hold still while Lance scribbled some kind of design, but he was laughing too hard. “Sorry. It’s just – you're a – fuckin – real-life witch – and – fuckin Harry Potter –” he wheezed. He contained himself, holding still.

Lance glared at him in mock offense, then pointed at him with the marker. “I said no judging. Now hold still.” He wiped a finger across the mess he’d made of the tracking sigil and it disappeared completely. This time, he was able to complete it with no errors. The marker was returned to the satchel, and Lance returned to Keith. He touched the symbol briefly, a green line coming away from the inscription, pointing out the door. “I’m just going to assume you know where your own apartment is,” he said after he was finished.

“I should hope so,” Keith answered.

Making sure Red was still inside, Lance and Keith left, Lance locking the door. The line was still emanating from Keith’s wrist, pointing in the same direction they were headed. Once they were back on the street where they’d met, Keith went to pull his left sleeve down.

“Nah, it’s ok,” Lance said, waving dismissively, “Normies can’t see it.”

They made it safely to Keith’s apartment, the line holding steady. Once inside, he went to where he kept all of the important papers. Everything was in a plastic, paper-sized envelope. Once he picked it up, the line went haywire, flickering and waving.

“Found it,” Lance said.

Sure enough, the nearly 26-year-old note was there, the paper as blue as it was when he was found, black ink still fresh. He handed it to Lance, who looked it over, then let it rest in his palm. He moved his hand, and the note remained suspended, then spun his index fingers in opposite directions around the paper. Thin silver lines like a three-dimensional astrolabe wrapped around the old note. Lance stared at it, waiting.

Soon enough, an image appeared in the spinning silver lines. A dark-haired woman was carrying a small bundle of soft blankets through a forest. Then she was in front of a fire station. A sheet of blue paper, folded twice, was pinned to the blanket. She laid the tiny bundle by the door of the fire house, then stood, backing away.

“They’ll never find you now,” she said in the barest whisper before turning and running back the way she had come. Her face was never visible in the image the note projected.

The silver lines dissipated and Lance caught the note, handing it back to Keith.

“Was. . .was that my mother?” Keith asked.

“I honestly don’t know, but it’s certainly possible. You’ve never seen her before?”

“No. Never. But that was me. I know it was. That’s where I was found.”

Lance looked the paper over again, finding the small holes left by the silver safety pin. His mind was racing as he turned the old note over in his hands. Now that he knew Keith was a witch, the impulsive rescue made sense. But what didn’t make sense was why they trusted each other so implicitly, or why Lance was going out of his way to unravel a two-and-a-half-decade old mystery. He suddenly wanted to see the charred remains of that house, especially on an anniversary, but he didn’t think Keith would agree to it. But he still felt the need to ask. About both the house and the pin. The house would tell him more about what had started it, and why it had burned the way it did. The pin could potentially tell him more about what had happened during Keith’s first few weeks of life.

“I have to ask you two things, and one of them is going to be a hell of a lot easier than the other,” Lance said after a minute.

Keith thought about it, but tonight couldn’t get much weirder, could it? He nodded. “Ok.”

“First, easier question. Do you have that safety pin still? The one from your note.”

“The pin and the blanket. Really don’t know why I've kept them. There’s nothing to identify anyone with it,” he said as he led Lance toward the bedroom, “I just know that all of my foster families, and my parents, all of them commented at least once that it had to have been made for me.”

The blanket and pin were in a small box on a shelf in Keith’s closet. Setting the box on his bed, he pulled the blanket out. It was obviously hand-knit, something made with a familial love for the infant it was gifted to. The subtle shift in stitches gave it texture, but to a witch’s eye, the spell-work was obvious. The combination of mundane knitting stitches and rich, midnight blue wool made the spells more subtle, but once Lance saw one, the rest became apparent, and he could read them like a book. The pin was there as well, its shaft woven through the purely decorative lace border.

“Holy fuck. Whoever made this. . .fuck me. This is some delicate and powerful magic. Someone really wanted you protected. But this,” he ran his fingers over one spot, “This explains why your magic has been hidden all this time. I’ve never seen a suppression spell like this.” He looked it over again, realizing that the lace he’d dismissed was actually the binding for this grimoire page of a baby blanket, one that also subtly compelled Keith to keep it. “Mierda, I definitely wouldn’t mind learning from whoever made this. I think that us being so close tonight is what woke that conscious sense in you.”

Keith looked at him, confused. “What sense?” He was definitely confused by the blanket as well, but, one thing at a time.

“As witches, we have more than just the normal five senses. How many more, and which ones, varies by witch, but we usually have a few extra. I’m not sure if what you have is foresight, or if it was more like a hyper-awareness. We’ll figure it out. But then there’s my other question.”

“The harder one.”

“Yeah,” Lance said, “And I'm sorry for it, but the timing is perfect.”

Keith interrupted him. “You want to see the house.”

Lance sighed and looked away, one hand going to the back of his neck. “And I really am sorry. I know how much dragging up the past can hurt, especially with something like this. But the energy around a place like that is stronger on the event’s anniversary. Almost like the spirit of the location or object is remembering.”

Keith left the bedroom, grabbing his keys from where he’d dropped them on the coffee table. He turned around to face Lance. “Let’s go. I need answers.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so it begins, my critters.
> 
> Honestly, though, I feel like I must be some kind of masochist for putting out two stories at the same time. I mean, it's not like I'm working on like ten all at once or anything. Who, me? Never. I totally am. I have a problem.
> 
> Welp, until next time!
> 
> -Corvus


	3. The Beginning of Questions Answered

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: Keith rehashes his past again, and some talk of past bullying, self harm, and attempted suicide.

The lights of Altea faded behind them in the rearview mirrors. Neither one had said a word since leaving Keith’s apartment. Keith had his eyes glued to the road, focusing on the pavement disappearing under his car. Lance sat beside him, watching the horizon. They continued on in silence until they both spoke at the same time.

“I haven’t been there since –” “I’m sorry I dragged you out –” “Oh, go ahead –” “No, I interrupted –”

Keith shook his head and huffed a laugh. “Tonight has been seriously fucked up. I rescue a witch only to find out that I'm somehow one too. I see things that leave more questions than answers. I don’t even know you, but I trust you. Enough to show you my scars. I haven’t let anyone see those.” He paused, shifting in his seat. “Before we get there, get to the house, I should tell you something about my past. The only relationship I've had since then ended because I couldn’t talk about this, but I have to. I know I told you that I was adopted, and that my parents died in that fire. It was what happened after that. They were my eleventh foster parents. They loved me unconditionally, like parents should. When they – when I lost them, I felt like I’d lost everything all over again. It was only a month before I turned twenty-one. I started drinking. Heavily. And cutting – well, you saw my scars. I smoked pot to deal with my anxiety. The drinking killed my emotions, cutting made me feel. Self-medicating was the only way I could calm down from days-long panic attacks. But then I got to this point where I wanted to feel something else. I started partying. Hard. And where I was going – clubs mostly – sex was on tap whenever I wanted. It became my replacement for actual interaction. I was so far gone that I forgot how live. My cousin found out when I left a razor blade out in the open. He got me into rehab, and I've done everything I can to put that year behind me. I’m telling you all this because I don’t know how I'm going to react when we get there. I both found and lost my family in that house. For a while, I couldn’t even say their names. But you should know them. My mothers. Jillian and Charlotte Westlake. They were two amazing women, and this is the last thing they deserved. If – if you want to go your way and I go mine after this, I understand. I’ve found in the past four years that not many people want to make friends with a recovering addict.”

“I don’t know your ex, but they’re wrong. I come from a long line of witches on both sides. We’re Cuban, but because we’re also witches, we don’t follow the Catholic Church. Doesn’t change much though. Part of blending in meant that I grew up in a heavily Latino neighborhood. Depression doesn’t exist. Mental illness is all made up. Just power through it. I knew I was gay when I was eleven. I buried it and pretended it didn’t exist. And then when I was sixteen, I accidentally told a friend that I was bi. It wasn’t the truth, but it was part of it. That was when the bullying started. I used to cut and then just heal it like it had never happened. The scars I still have, those happened after everything came to a head in my senior year of high school. Three of my bullies cornered me in the locker room after school one day. I still don’t know what their plan was because my best friend, my only friend at the time, had come looking for me. He also happened to be the captain of the wrestling team, so they didn’t want to take him on. But it was enough. That incident, the things they said that day, the constant bullying – the scars are from my suicide attempt that night. I started cutting and I couldn’t stop. I think I figured that if I made enough of a mess that not even my healer Abueli could save me. But my Mamá had come looking for me and stopped it just after I’d started on my right wrist after shredding the left one. My Abueli asked me what happened and I told her everything. She healed me, but I asked her to leave the scars as a reminder.”

“Why are people such assholes?” Keith demanded of no one in particular. “The last two foster families I had before my moms both told my social worker that it ‘wasn’t going to work out’ after they found out. The first one only a couple months after I came out when I was twelve. The second one was the ‘hate the sin but love the sinner’ Christian-type family, but they ended up giving me back just like the first one. I don’t get it. Why does who we love have anything to do with who we are as people?”

“It doesn’t,” Lance said, “People just suck.”

“Can’t argue that,” Keith agreed as they turned the corner, starting down the long road he hadn’t been down in five years. “We’re almost there.”

Lance paid more attention to their surroundings, watching the houses go by, noticing the empty field on his right, and then the house came into view. Charred, blackened wood clung to a frame that still stood, the roof and top floor attic sitting pristine. Even still at a distance and with the car’s windows up, the energy rolling off of the property made him nauseous. He risked opening his third eye to see the house on the astral plane. He wished he hadn’t. Black smoke filled the empty spaces, pure evil radiating from it. He had never felt a level of unadulterated malice like it. He had no doubt the fire was intentional, but no mundane method would ever prove it. If he could find the source of the smoke, he would be able to find what had sparked the fire. That was one goal of coming. The other was to see Keith’s bedroom. Lance wanted to know what had stopped the fire. He was especially unsure now. It was certainly possible that it was a reaction of Keith’s suppressed magic, but now that he’d seen that baby blanket, he suspected that might have at least been a part of it.

Keith cut the engine, taking a few breaths before looking at the remains of the house. Lance just waited, knowing how hard this most likely was.

“Ok,” Keith said suddenly, “Let’s go. We’re not getting any answers sitting here.”

They both got out of the car, walking toward the house. Now it was Lance’s turn to take a deep breath. He had seen the house on the astral plane from the car, but it would be different walking through it. He closed his eyes, opening his third eye. The layout of the house was the same in the astral plane, whispers of the structure it once was. Now that he was in the middle of it, he could see the path of the smoke. It billowed out from a single source to fill the skeleton of what had been an old Victorian. Cautiously making his way through, he followed the smoke to the remains of a kitchen wall. Etched into the baseboard was a defined mark; one that would have gone unnoticed by normal humans. It wasn’t one that Lance recognized, but he could feel the nauseating vileness radiating from it. He pulled a small journal from his bag and ripped a page from it, then held it against the mark, an exact copy transferring to the paper. He quickly made his way out, wanting to be as far from that mark as possible. Closing his third eye, he came back out, finding Keith waiting for him on the front lawn, staring up at the charred remains of what had once been his home.

“You ok?” he asked.

“No,” Keith answered, unshed tears making his voice crack, “But I need to know. Did you find anything?”

Lance nodded. “Yeah. I did. I don’t know what to make of it right now, but I made a copy. I’ll be able to look into it later. We don’t have to go up there tonight if you’re not up to it. I can come back on my own later if it’s ok with you.”

“No, it’s ok. It’s part of the answers I need. We’ll have to get up there from the backyard. There’s a ladder in the shed. Do you even need one?”

The witch chuckled. “Not really. But you do. Until you can properly unlock your magic, you won’t be able to do anything like that.”

Keith shrugged. “Guess that makes sense.”

He pulled the ladder out, Lance helping – through magical means – to get it set up against the house. Keith led the way to his still intact bedroom, Lance levitating and using the ladder’s rungs to propel himself upward. He reasoned that in the middle of the night anyone looking wouldn’t be able to tell the difference anyway. Keith had no idea why he found it as funny as he did; it probably had something to do with how emotionally overwhelmed he was feeling. He climbed in the window, Lance propelling himself in after and landing softly on the floor.

Keith was immediately hit by how much the room _hadn’t_ changed in five years. Not even a layer of dust. It was like he’d just left it only minutes before, not years. His bed still sat in the same corner, sheets still in the same place he’d left them when he got up that night. His desk was still on the opposite wall, still with the same paint stains, and the line he’d accidentally sliced in it with his craft knife trying to trim a sheet of watercolor paper to size and missing the self-healing mat. The closet and dresser were empty, as were the bookcases, desk and bedside table. He’d spent six years in that bedroom, and they’d been the best six years of his life.

The thing that did surprise him was the strange feeling he got while standing in that room. The feeling that his parents were there with him, even though he was there for the funeral, even though he knew they were buried in a cemetery in Olkarion. It wasn’t a feeling of being watched, but one of being held by his mothers. It made him feel safe, reassured. He’d been so busy looking around his old room that he didn’t notice Lance staring.

“They’re here,” he said, “I can see them. Right there beside you.” Lance looked to one side of Keith, into what appeared to be empty air. “Charlotte, right?” He looked to the other side. “And you must be Jillian.”

Keith looked on either side of himself. He couldn’t see what Lance could, but he felt the change in the air. The presence he felt grew stronger, almost tangible. He felt a warmth around his hands and arms, comforting and protective.

“They – they want you – to what? – I don’t understand. They said that the fire was always meant for you, but you’re not to blame for it. They understand now that there was far more happening around you than they could have understood then. They know what happened to you after the fire. They know that you never meant it. And that your coming back from it and healing shows how strong you are. And, I’m sorry. They can’t move on until the ones responsible for the fire are dealt with.” Lance stopped, looking between the two women only he could see. “Oh. They want you to rebuild the house. The plans are with the historical society in Altea. They said that this is still your home, and it always will be. And they want you to find someone to share it with.”

Keith sunk to the floor, overwhelmed with emotion. The warm protectiveness became real. He could feel his mothers’ arms around him again. “I didn’t,” he whispered, “I didn’t mean it. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t live. So I ran. But I came back. I’m still broken, but I'm back.”

_“No, sweetheart, you’re not broken. Not anymore. You’re still healing, but you’re not broken.”_

“Mom?”

_“We’re still here for you. We always will be. We watched you grow from a jaded boy to a bright, beautiful man. And you’ve grown so much more since then. You have a new way to grow now. Encourage it. Own it. We’ll be right here.”_

“Mama Jill?”

Keith finally dared look up. They weren’t quite there, he could just make out the walls and furniture behind them, but his parents were there. His mothers. Looking as proud of him as they had for every major event they’d been a part of. After their deaths, they learned the truth about the boy they adopted and loved like their own, and they understood his real potential and wanted him to realize it. It hurt, but also felt like the lead blanket that had been crushing him for so long was lifting. Not gone, but lighter. It became a load he could carry without stumbling. He saw movement and looked to his arms, seeing his mothers’ hands there. He pulled his sleeves up, watching as his scars disappeared leaving his pale skin unblemished. They disappeared from view, but Keith knew they were still there. He could feel them. He stood, and found Lance hastily wiping tears away.

“Sorry,” he said, “It’s not like I wanted to listen in or anything, but it’s not like I could help it. You don’t have to tell me. I don’t need to know that.”

“No, it’s ok. You already know. I know they’re still right here beside me. But we’re here to find out what made the fire stop.”

Keith walked past Lance and did the one thing he’d wanted to do for five years. He opened the door to his bedroom.

The short passage to the stairs was almost as pristine as his bedroom. It had heavy smoke damage, but was still intact. What remained of the stairs was charred and blackened like the rest of the house, and Keith realized he could see all the way to the ground floor. But the fire had actually stopped right at the top of the stairs, never progressing into the passage. He felt, rather than heard or saw, Lance come up behind and then beside him.

“That blanket is extremely powerful. It’s meant to protect you, and it has. But the protection and other spells worked into your baby blanket didn’t do this. You did.”

Keith turned around to face the witch. “How? I was asleep when the fire started. I didn’t even know what woke me up. Or that the house was on fire until I smelled it. Would you be able to stop a fire like that?”

Lance shook his head. “No. I couldn’t do that. I mean, with correct training, I could eventually, but not like you did. I think once your magic is fully awakened, you’ll be capable of some truly amazing shit. We still don’t know who your parents are, but you definitely come from two _very_ powerful families. I’ll do some research into your family name and see what I come up with, but we should head back to Altea. Rest up. We both need it.” He paused, looking for the right words. “If – if you don’t feel comfortable or safe in your apartment, you can come back to mine. I have protections and wards all over the place. It might not be a bad idea anyway, since we don’t know if whoever set the fire will know that we were here.”

He thought about it for a moment. “No, it makes sense. And even if I could protect myself in my own apartment, I couldn’t put that many people at risk. Not now that I know.” Keith paused, looking for his own words. “I trust you. I want to know about myself, find out about the family I didn’t know I had. And if I have the kind of potential you think I do, I want to learn how to use it.”

“You don’t have work tomorrow, do you? Cuz there’s no one better to learn from than my abuelas. Well, them and whoever made your blanket.”

“No. Oddly enough for an artist, I work normal office hours more or less. Comes with working for a decent sized game developer,” Keith said as he headed for the window.

Lance followed him, climbing down like a normal person. “Like a video game developer?” he asked.

“Yeah. I used to work for a smaller company, but they got bought, and the new company transferred me from Olkarion to Altea. I work on character concepts. They give me a rundown of the game, rough sketches from the scenic artists if there are any, and written outlines of the characters and then I bring them to life, basically. They take my designs and work them into something that will work with their software and final setting.”

“That’s really fucking cool, actually.”

“I like it. I also have an online store for prints of my original pieces separate from my day job.” Keith got to the bottom of the ladder and barely ten feet away before a flashlight was in his face.

“Oh. You. Mrs. Flanagan called me saying something about ghosts or intruders around here. The hell you doing sneaking around at night?”

The owner of the flashlight was Lt. Iverson of Arus police. He never really believed that Keith hadn’t set the fire, only that he’d managed it without getting caught and that the grieving son was just an act. Needless to say, Keith didn’t like him at all.

“So now there’s a law against being on my own property?” he snapped, not in the mood for this kind of bullshit.

“They might have dismissed the charges, but I know you did it. Five years to the day and now you’re back? Didn’t think I’d notice, did ya?”

“I don’t have time for this,” Keith bit out, storming past.

Lance followed him, not wanting to get caught in the middle. He wasn’t entirely sure what was going on between them, but Keith had mentioned that they thought he’d set the fire intentionally, and this cop seemed to have it out for him.

Keith slammed the car door closed, leaning his seat back. Lance slid into the passenger seat, closing the door quietly.

“You ok?” he asked.

Keith sighed. “No, not really. I just need a minute. Here,” he pulled his phone out, going to his virtual store, “These are all mine.”

Lance took the device, scrolling through the gallery. There were detailed pencil drawings, fluid watercolors, bright acrylics, but something that Lance noticed was the way Keith signed his work. He opened the preview image of one of the watercolors, zooming in on the signature. He almost couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The artwork was all beautiful, there was no denying that, but it was the signature that caught his attention most. And the only reason it caught his attention so completely was because he _knew_ that Keith’s magic was suppressed by someone trying to keep him hidden. So why, then, or how, really, was he signing his artwork with a witch’s mark?

He’d been studying it a while and hadn’t noticed Keith watching him. “What is it?” he asked.

Lance started. “Your signature. That’s a witch’s mark. I’m starting to get the feeling that whoever wanted you hidden didn’t have any idea of just how powerful you’d be. We need to get back to Altea.”

Keith pulled his seat back up. “Ok. I need to stop by my apartment first just to pick up a few things, but you’re literally around the corner from me.”

He pulled out of the driveway and down the street, ignoring Iverson’s cruiser still parked in front of the house. Much like the trip there, they drove in silence for a while before Lance had a question he needed answered.

“You’ve said a few times tonight that you trust me. Why? Not why did you say it, but why do you trust me?”

Keith focused on the road, thinking it over. “I don’t know. I just know that I do. I didn’t know why I felt like I had to get you out of the middle of the street either. It was just this feeling. Like if I didn’t something horrible was going to happen. I'm not saying that this is exactly the same, but my instinct is to trust you. I don’t know. I've always been able to get that sense of people when I meet them. This kind of yay or nay feeling. I’ve never been wrong, even if no one believes me at first.”

“We really need to figure you out.”

“Yeah. You're telling me.”

Back at Keith’s apartment, he packed a few things for a normal, mundane weekend trip, picked up his laptop and tablet, sketchbook and pencils, and his blanket. Now that he knew how important it was, he knew why he needed to keep it. He tucked the note inside the box along with it and the envelope of all his important documents. He didn’t need them, but there was now that feeling following him that something could happen at any time, and he wanted to be as prepared as possible. Just before leaving Lance made a suggestion.

“Might sound a little weird, but maybe leave your mark somewhere in the building. A mark is tied to a witch’s power. Now that you’re more aware of it, your mark should be stronger. Just in case.”

“Just in case whoever is looking for me comes here. Yeah, that makes sense.” Keith found a sharpie mixed in with the pens on his desk, taking it with him. He left his mark near the bottom of a wall by the door to the building before leaving.

Lance led the way back to the secret shop. Neither cat was there to greet them, but Lance didn’t seem bothered at all. He wove his way to the back and to the left door of the two there. The apartment upstairs resembled a neater version of the shop below them. But the thing that struck Keith the most was the almost tangible magical energy. It felt familiar and comforting. It tickled something in the back of his mind, like a memory, but not quite. Lance noticed his reaction.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I can feel the magic here. It feels familiar. Like something I've felt before, but just can’t remember.” Keith turned to face Lance fully, the only light was the moonlight streaming in through the window. “I think I was supposed to meet you tonight. Not like fate or destiny or anything. More like a celestial alignment. Everything being in the right place at the right time.”

Lance stared at him, an odd smile on his lips. “Those don’t exist. Fate. Destiny. But the stars – they guide us more than anyone knows. You have to be the most intuitive witch I’ve ever met. It’s a problem with us. We can become too hidebound. Too stuck in tradition. Too trapped by the sentiment of this is the way it’s always been. You’re going to be the most incredible witch. I know it.”

“I believe you.” Keith didn’t know when they had gotten so close. “What now?”

Lance turned away, breaking the pull between them. “We should get some sleep. It’s late. We have a lot to do tomorrow.”

With a snap of his fingers, the very dimensions of the apartment shifted, and what was once the living room, separated from the open kitchen by a long counter, became a second bedroom, the sofa opening itself into a queen-sized bed. From the inside, the curtains that fell from the ceiling were translucent, but from the outside, they were completely opaque. Lance pointed behind Keith.

“Bathroom’s that way. My room has its own. Pretty bad layout, to be honest. I’ll, I’ll um try not to wake you up too early,” he said, leaving for his own bedroom.

They both settled themselves in, both staring at the ceiling. Lance covered his face with a pillow, accidentally upsetting the cat he didn’t know was there. Blue, the Nebelung with vibrant green eyes, glared at him before stalking off to find her companion Red. Lance ignored her, still thinking about what had just happened between himself and Keith.

“What the fuck?” he whispered. “I literally just met him. Why the actual fuck does this feel so right?”

Out in the former living room, Keith also lay awake. He was thinking about his last conversation with Lance. About how he knew he could say anything and it wouldn’t be seen as weird. About his lapis blue eyes and perfect amber skin. About what he’d really wanted was to kiss the witch in front of him, feel that perfect skin under his fingertips. But, no, they’d only just met. And Keith wasn’t like that. Not anymore. And never like this. This felt right. Another alignment in the stars. It was his last thought before falling asleep that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Greetings again faeries, wisps, and sprites! I know I said this was going to be slow to update, and it probably will be, but it's more like I'm not committing to a schedule as I'm working on updating Our Life in Pictures once a week.
> 
> We're working away from the heavier things in Keith and Lance's more recent pasts, but Keith's origins aren't the happiest either, and that will begin to unfold soon.
> 
> Until next time!
> 
> -Corvus


	4. New Friends and New Feelings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _{dialogue text}_ indicates that the dialogue is in Spanish
> 
> *~_~*~_~*
> 
> TW: a bit more of Lance's past with bullying discussed

Lance woke alone the next morning. Usually, he would have at least one large, fluffy cat in his face. Whether it was Blue, the silver-grey Nebelung, or her life-long companion Red, the mottled ginger Maine Coon. One of them would be there, trying to suffocate him in their quest for breakfast. Or both. Usually both. But Lance’s curiosity about what his cats were up to was replaced by remembering the previous night and that Keith was there. He quickly changed his usual shorts for deep blue pajama pants covered in sharks – they were his favorites, no judging. He padded out to his altered living room, spotting the feline pair through the partially opened curtains. Those traitors were curled up with Keith.

The man himself was sitting up in bed, his tablet open to a page of notes and his sketchbook on his lap, the beginnings of another character sketch in progress. Lance felt like he shouldn’t find seeing him like that, focused on his work with a half-assed ponytail that left a few strands slipping out to fall freely around his face, so fucking attractive. He shouldn’t be distracted by Keith’s pale skin, or how his midnight black hair contrasted with it. And when he looked up at the sound of Lance walking in, he definitely shouldn’t be completely sidetracked by bright, blue-purple eyes that weren’t quite indigo and weren’t quite violet framed by long, thick black lashes. Nope. Definitely should not be finding this man as ridiculously attractive as he did. And he certainly wasn’t looking at the fact that Keith wore torso-skimming tank tops to bed that showed off his obnoxiously toned arms. Nope. Stop that. Lance was _not repeat not_ checking Keith out. It was not happening. Except it was.

The first thing Keith noticed when he woke up that morning was the presence of two large, fluffy bodies snuggled up to him. He recognized Red from the previous night, and assumed the other was Blue. He checked the time and decided that it was way too early to be getting up, so he’d tried to go back to sleep. Something that should have been easy with the cats pressed against him, but he just couldn’t fall asleep again. Eventually, he gave up, pulling the curtains open a bit for extra light and took out his latest assignment from work, using the notes on his tablet as reference. He grabbed one of the hair ties he kept in his bag, absently pulling his hair back as an afterthought.

He sensed Lance coming in before he heard the witch’s bare footsteps. He looked up, catching the end of a scowl at the cats. _No, Keith, you don’t even know him yet,_ he told himself. But that scowl was adorable. As were the shark pants. He told himself that it was just habit. As an artist. That was why he was looking Lance over, from those shark pants that hung off his slim hips up to the pale grey tank top that showed off the rest of his slender curves, all the way to the half-curled bedhead. It had nothing to do with the fact that he was realizing just how pretty this man was. Which he was, subjectively. No, objectively. That one. Right. Nothing to do with how attracted Keith was to Lance. Not at all. Except it was.

“So,” Lance started, once again breaking the tension, “We should see my abuelas today. They’ll know where to start.” He moved around the counter to the kitchen. A cabinet door opened dutifully on its own, and he pulled down an old metal container, summoning another from the top shelf. “You like coffee or tea?”

“Shit. I knew I forgot something,” Keith said, getting up and walking over to the counter with his sketchbook and tablet.

The witch cocked his head in confusion.

“As part of my recovery, I avoid caffeine as much as possible,” he explained, “I have an herbal tea I like, but of course I forgot it.”

Lance smiled, a small twist of his lips. “You forget where you are. What’s in it?”

Keith gave him a list of the blend’s ingredients, Lance’s version turning out better than the one Keith regularly bought. The witch flitted about the kitchen, feeding the cats and deciding that it being Saturday meant that pancakes were in order. The second the cats had left the bed, Lance sent another snap of his fingers over his shoulder, the living room righting itself. Keith realized that he wasn’t nearly as startled by it as he thought he should have been. He also had a question, one whose answer he’d been thinking over all morning.

“Last night you said that fate and destiny don’t exist, but that the stars still guide us. You also said earlier that I may have some form of foresight, but doesn’t that indicate that fate _does_ exist?”

Lance turned around, breakfast continuing to make itself behind him. “That is a question some have asked for, well, forever. My mother has foresight. Sometimes, yes, like last night – which I still don’t know if it was that or hyperawareness – things felt or seen _will_ happen, but only because it’s immediate. My Mamá has had hundreds of visions, but they’re not set in stone. It’s a possibility, not a certainty. The future isn’t immutable. The stars’ guidance gives us an idea of what could be, not what will be.”

“So, every fortune-telling method out there…” Keith trailed off, letting Lance finish the sentence.

“Are all taken totally out of context. It’s why they’re written off by the rest of the world as being fake.”

As they were finishing breakfast, Keith remembered what was on the floor below them. “So, downstairs…”

“My shop?” Lance asked, “Oh, don’t worry about that. I have a friend who runs it for me on weekends. They’re a college student with a talent for technomancy. An area of magic that makes absolutely no sense to me. We’re going to have to bring them up to speed more or less. The second they see you they’ll want answers and won’t stop until they get them. Ones they’re happy with anyway.”

Keith finished his tea, handing the cup over to Lance. “How much do we need to tell them?” he asked.

“The absolute basics. That you saved me from that drunk driver last night, I realized that you're a witch, we don’t know why your magic is suppressed, you got here this morning before they did, and that we’re going to see my abuelas about it. All true, and they don’t need to know about any of the more sensitive details.”

“Getting here at nearly two in the morning doesn’t exactly count, but, yeah, that does cover the basics.”

“Two is technically morning and it was definitely before they got here, since it’s after ten now. Totally counts. Still, details they don’t need to know,” Lance said, waving dismissively. “Either way, we need to get dressed and I need to call my Mamá.”

Keith checked the time, not realizing how late it was. “Shit. Yeah we do,” he said, pulling the hair tie out.

Lance caught himself staring before Keith did, instead shifting his attention to Red and Blue, who had taken up the entire sofa, as usual. He watched as Keith just scooped Blue up like she weighed nothing, retrieving the backpack she’d curled up on, and gently set her down beside Red. Honestly, Lance was surprised at Blue’s reaction to being manhandled like that. Usually, she objected to being held, but melted like butter in Keith’s hands. But both Red and Blue just adopting him like that? They were known as being standoffish for a while when meeting new people, only really being comfortable around Lance, so just adopting Keith like a stray kitten was new. Keith made sure to give Red attention before heading off to the bathroom at the other end of the apartment, and Lance caught himself staring again, this time at the way Keith’s silky hair brushed his back, and how his equally black and equally silky loose-fitting pajama pants sat on his hips just right.

The bathroom door closed, snapping Lance back to the task at hand. Launching himself off the counter, he sailed toward his bedroom, grabbing the door frame as he passed before letting his feet hit the floor with a thud. He got himself cleaned up and changed in record time, heading back out to the living room. He looked over the long counter at the mess from breakfast, shooing the dishes into the sink, letting the enchantments do the rest. Settling onto the sofa between the cats, he pulled his phone out and called his mother.

Keith tried not to think about his immediate reaction to Lance’s first-thing-in-the-morning look. He really did. But that, especially combined with that little smirk when Keith had realized he’d forgotten his herbal tea, that was enough for him to admit to himself that he might, maybe, possibly, be forming a little bit of a crush on this witch. Not that he’d admit it out loud. If Adam heard about it – after he stopped giving Keith shit – he’d say it had to do with forming an attachment based on a shared, adrenaline-fueled experience and to be careful. Of course, it’s not like he could tell Adam or Shiro the entire truth. They’d never believe it, not that he’d expect them to. As he was walking down to the living room, he heard Lance’s voice, realizing that he was talking to his mother.

_{None of it makes sense. Why would anyone do that? I have to figure it out. The only other thing that I don’t understand is why I feel like this, why I have to do this. I don’t know, I just know that I have to do it. I don’t have foresight like you. … Yeah, I know that psychometry is just as useful – oh, I gotta go. I’ll see you soon. Bye, Mamá.}_

Keith understood everything and spoke without thinking. _{If it makes you feel any better, I don’t think it makes any sense either.}_

Lance snapped to look at him. “What?” he asked, almost disbelieving.

“Oh, sorry,” Keith answered with a small laugh, “Didn’t even think about it. The first elementary school I went to was bilingual and Spanish was a requirement, and I kept it up. All the way through college, even though my professors all asked me why I was there.”

“Yeah,” Lance said, still a little stunned, “I can see why.” He shook himself out of his surprise. “We should get going. Especially since we’re definitely gonna get stopped by the gremlin.”

Keith cocked an eyebrow. “The what now?”

“That’s just what we call Pidge, my friend downstairs. I’m guessing you picked up on it, but they’re nonbinary.”

“Yeah, I figured with the they/them,” Keith said, packing his messenger bag with his personal sketchbook, pencils, and, most importantly, the box.

He took the envelope with his personal documents in it out, slipping it into the inside pocket, before fitting the box in behind his sketchbook. Once that was done, and Lance had retrieved his own leather messenger bag, they headed downstairs, the cats following them.

“Aren’t you worried they’ll get out again?” Keith asked.

“Nah. They’re the shop cats as much as mine. Not that they’re normal house cats anyway. They’re both magical cats. Red teleports, which is why she gets out so often, and Blue can phase through solid objects like mist. And they’re both smarter than a lot of humans I've met. Which is why it’s weird that they both just adopted you like that,” Lance answered, closing the door that led to his upstairs apartment.

“I was wondering when you were going to show up,” a voice called from the front of the shop.

“And here we go,” he muttered.

Keith could only assume that the small figure perched on the tall bar chair behind the counter was Pidge. They sat cross-legged, a laptop balanced on their lap. Instead of the usual brand logo, the back of their computer featured a bronze pentacle surrounded by what looked like letters from an alphabet Keith had never seen. An oversized iced coffee cup hovered above the counter within arm’s reach. Keith could just make out an inscription scrawled on the plastic in the same alphabet as the computer that looked like it was keeping her drink cold and preventing condensation.

“Keith, this is Pidge - alchemist, technomancer, and general pain in the ass. Pidge, this is Keith. Be nice,” Lance said by way of introduction.

Pidge perked up when they realized that Keith was new and sent their laptop floating to the counter’s surface. They hopped down from the bar chair and Keith realized just how small they were, standing at about five feet. Pidge looked him over before turning to Lance.

“Why do I have to be nice? And where did you find him? I thought we knew most of the witches in Altea,” they asked.

“Because I said so. That’s kinda why he’s here and why we’re leaving. Ok, so, you have to promise not to flip out.”

“Why?” Pidge was curious and slightly concerned.

“Because, Red got out again last night, and I would have gotten run over by a dumbass drunk driver if Keith hadn’t been there and literally pulled me out of the way.”

“Excuse you, what?!” they demanded, a little louder than was necessary.

“So, it turns out I'm a witch, but I didn’t know, and my magic is suppressed, and we don’t know why. I live around the corner and was out for a walk when it happened,” Keith explained, “I just got the feeling something was going to happen if I didn’t do it.”

Pidge eyed him with careful consideration before turning back to Lance. “Foresight? Also, why was he here and coming down from your apartment?”

“Don’t know. Hyperawareness maybe. He got here before you did, gremlin. We were upstairs talking. And now we’re going to see The Abuelas about it. If anyone can figure out where to start, it’s them. Also, Red and Blue have already adopted him,” he answered. He wanted to leave before Pidge got any sensitive information out of him.

Their consideration turned critical. “You’re not telling me everything. What aren’t you telling me? But that’s both weird and hilarious with the cats. They never do that. Keith, you must be good people if those two like you already.”

“Nothing you need to worry about. If it goes ok with The Abuelas, we’ll tell you more tonight. Goodbye, Pidgey,” Lance said, steering Keith toward the door.

“I’m holding you to that!” Pidge called after them.

Outside, Keith stopped and turned back to see the building in daylight. Maybe it was that, maybe it was his gradually awakening magic, but the Victorian-era building looked different. It wasn’t just another 150-year-old brick edifice like so much of the city, his own apartment building included. It felt almost alive, and he could clearly see that it was a witch’s shop, Red and Blue together on a blue velvet cushion in the window. Lance noticed him staring, and came up behind him.

“Looks different now, doesn’t it?” he asked.

Keith nodded. “Feels different. Alive almost.”

“Yeah, there’s a lot of built-up energy from it being a magic shop for so long. I took it over from the last owner a few years ago. You’ll meet him at some point. He’s in and out a lot. But normal people, non-witches, they can’t see this. It just looks like another brick building to them.” They had turned to face the street and had walked halfway down the block before Lance spoke again. “If we’re going to tell Pidge about all this, if you’re ok with it –” he cut himself off, glancing at Keith for a reaction.

“Some of it anyway. I trust them. But you’re the first person I've just spilled my story to outside of therapy and rehab. Anyway, you were saying?”

“Just that if we’re going to tell Pidge that we should tell Hunk as well. I know I told you about my wrestling captain best friend from high school last night. That’s Hunk. He’s a witch like us too. And that day in the locker room wasn’t the only time he rescued me from them.” Lance sighed. “I hate doing this to everyone.”

“Doing what?” Keith asked, glancing at the witch beside him as they walked.

“I don’t drive. I can’t. The bullying, the picking at me – it happened every day. But there was only one other time where it went too far.”

Keith stopped, one hand gently holding Lance’s arm. “You don’t have to tell me. It’s ok. Bullies are trash humans and don’t deserve the attention they're looking for. If I’d been there, I would have fought for you too.”

 _Shit! That last part was out loud! Why does he have to be so imperfectly perfect?_ Keith’s mind raced.

But Lance was barreling ahead with his words, and it felt like he hadn’t heard the last thing Keith said. “No no, it’s ok. I mean, I know I don’t have to tell you, but I want to. It would honestly make me feel better if I did.” He paused, taking a breath to steady himself against the memory. “I was leaving school one day and they were waiting for me in the parking lot. I had my keys in my hand and they just took them away, ripped my backpack off, and locked me into my own car, leaning up against the doors so I couldn’t get out. I was panicking because of that, but then I had the other problem of needing to contain my magic. There’s a lot we can hide from the rest of the world, but something big enough even they can’t ignore. Hunk was meeting me after practice, so he wasn’t all that far behind me. They threw my keys into the empty field behind the parking lot and took off when he showed up. Hunk found them, and I got us home, but I haven’t been able to drive without panic attacks since.”

“I’m sorry you had to go through all that. What I did, I did to myself. I know that and I've owned it. But you didn’t do anything to deserve that kind of treatment.” Keith let his hand drop and they continued on, walking closer together than they had been.

Lance was quiet until they were only a half block away, thinking about how Keith had reacted to, well, everything. That as hard as some things had been since last night, he’d rolled with it. He could fully admit that he wasn’t always the best at reading people, but for whatever reason, Keith was an open book to him. Like right then, Lance could feel the edge of nervousness rolling around Keith’s aura. He didn’t have his sister’s witch’s sense when it came to aura reading, but it felt like he didn’t need it with Keith, it was just there. Everything about Keith was different. It made him think about the physical attraction he’d realized that morning and then reconsider it. Because it wasn’t just physical. There was nothing about him that didn’t pull Lance in. He refused to call it anything but an attraction, for now at least. But thinking about that attraction led him back to the last thing Keith said before Lance went quiet. About his opinion on bullies and his assertion that Lance hadn’t done anything to deserve it.

Lance’s arm brushed Keith’s and he had to wonder if that was his subconscious intent. “Thanks,” he said quietly.

“For what?” Keith asked, looking over at the witch before going back to paying attention to midday Saturday foot traffic.

“For being better than my high school friends who all dumped me when I started coming out – except Hunk and Pidge, of course – not judging me, just, accepting me for who and what I am. And, I mean, you're right, we really don’t know each other, tragic backstories notwithstanding, but I do trust you. And I’d like to. Get to know you. Things you’ve done, problems you’ve had – they can only define you if you let them. You didn’t let them.”

“Y’know, you're the second person to tell me that. The morning when I told my cousin about how far I’d gone, he called his boyfriend over to help with me so he could plan the best course of action – he’s a psychiatrist, my cousin – and when I was feeling like death and hating myself for what I’d done, that was what my cousin’s boyfriend told me. That my addictions don’t define me. I wasn’t sure I believed it then, but I do now. I meant what I said last night. We were supposed to meet then. I know, you said that fate and destiny don’t exist, but it doesn’t change what I know.”

“You really don’t have any doubt about that, do you?” Lance asked.

“No, I don’t. And I couldn’t explain it if I tried; I just know that it was where and when we both needed to be,” Keith answered, total certainty in his voice.

They were coming up on Keith’s building and Lance decided to open his third eye to check if anything like the pure evil he’d encountered at the house was there, but it was clean. Keith felt a jolt when it happened, snapping to look at the witch. Physically, Lance’s blue eyes were open, but hazy. However, there was something else that Keith couldn't quite identify that was all at once calming, unsettling, and wholly natural about it. Lance turned to look at him, his eyes clearing as his vision returned to normal.

“I checked the building; it’s clear. But you should probably go over your mark again just to be safe,” he said, now noticing how Keith was looking at him, added with a curious tone, “What? Did you see what I did?”

“Not sure what it was, but yeah, I did.”

“I opened my third eye to see into the Astral Plane. Normally, it’s something that other witches can feel happening if one of us does it, but it’s not something that can be seen exactly. What did you see?”

“Well, first I felt this kinda electric jolt? That’s when I looked over, and you had this haze around you, like late summer heat, and your eyes went out of focus and cloudy,” Keith explained as best he could.

“Yeah. Ok. You have an aura sense. That’s how my sister has described it. I don’t think I've ever heard of a witch having foresight and aura sense at the same time. And possibly a connection to the Astral Plane. You are a mystery wrapped in an enigma locked inside a puzzle box. Well, it’s why we’re going to see The Abuelas,” Lance said, walking into the building through the door Keith was holding for him.

When they were sure no one was around, Keith dug out the sharpie from his pencil case, tracing over the lines of his mark. When he’d done it the night before, it was just like signing another art piece. This time he could feel the magic tingling down his arm and into the old wood by the front door. If it felt like that now, he could only imagine what it would feel like when his magic was fully awakened. Tucking the sharpie back into his bag, he led the way to the back door of the building and out to the parking lot.

“Last night,” Keith started as they left the apartment building, “I didn’t feel anything when I put my mark on the wall, and your shop looked like another brick building. But today, I saw the place for what it is, I saw and felt you doing the third-eye thing, and just now, I felt this tingle going down my arm when I traced back over my mark. And as far as we know, my magic is still suppressed, so how did this happen literally overnight?”

“It might seem like overkill, but when we – me and my siblings – were little, and my Mamá either wanted us to learn to do things in a non-magical way, or we were being punished for being the little shits we were, she would sometimes use mild suppression spells on us. It’s pretty normal parenting and doesn’t do any lasting harm. But what you're describing is how it feels when a suppression spell starts wearing off. But that shouldn’t be happening. I dunno what to tell you. The Abuelas know _a lot,_ but if they can’t figure this out, we may need to go to a couple friends that aren’t exactly human. But hopefully we won’t need that. Not that it’s a bad thing, it’s not. Fey Kin can just be a little intimidating at first,” Lance explained.

“Fey Kin?”

“Oh. Right. Um, they’re a race of half-fey – faeries – and they’re kinda like Tolkien elves. It’ll make sense when you meet them eventually.”

“Ok then,” Keith said, unlocking the car.

Lance was present enough to be able to give directions, but his mind wandered. It had started shortly after settling into the car and having the sudden impulse to tell Keith nearly everything about his family. He’d already spilled the darkest parts of his life to someone he barely knew, but he was only now realizing it. What was it about Keith that made him so comfortable that he could share his most closely held secrets like that? And why did he now feel the need to tell a virtual stranger about his family? He didn’t have answers to those questions, and had barely given those questions an even half-formed thought before opening his mouth.

“So, I’m not entirely sure who'll be at the house when we get there. Any or all of my parents, grandparents, or siblings could be there. My older brother and sister moved out already, but that never stops them coming by on weekends. And all my grandparents live there, along with my parents and my other two siblings.”

Keith breathed a laugh. “A few of the foster homes I was in had big families, and then the group homes in between were pure chaos, but I always kinda wished I’d grown up with a family like that.”

And now Lance was regretting having said anything. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to –” he started.

Keith cut him off, feeling Lance’s emotions filtering through his own. “No, it’s ok. I found my family. And maybe it was just the three of us, and I will miss them forever, but my moms were my real parents. But I want to hear about your family. I can tell you love them.”

“Yeah, I really do. Oh, left at the light. Anyway, well, I guess I can start with my siblings. First there’s my brother Rafael. He’s an investigator for the Witches’ Council, mostly because he has hyperawareness and he’s good at that shit. Then there’s my sister Adriana. She’s an empath, and a healer like our Abueli. They both moved out a few years ago. Then there’s my other two siblings who haven’t moved out yet. Mamá says that Xander – well, The Abuelas still call him Alejandro – has no real excuse for not moving out yet. We’re twins, and since I moved out, Mamá decided that he should too. He has psychometry too – I should probably explain that we’re identical twins – but yeah, he’s still at home with our parents. And then there’s the baby, Bel, or Isabela, she’s the one with the aura sense. She’s only twenty-three and just finished her degree in botany. She wants to be an herbalist, but she also wants to have a shop that’s both for witches and non-magical people. So kinda New Age-y I guess?”

“Yeah, I can see that working around here. I think we’re almost there,” Keith said, noting the change in language on the business’ signage having changed from all English to almost exclusively Spanish.

Lance snapped to look out the window. “Oh shit we are. It actually gets a little weird from here.” Lance paid more attention to his surroundings, and with his familiarity with the area, they were pulling into his parents’ driveway within five minutes.

Behind the short stone wall topped with carefully kept hedges lay an herb garden, blocks of plants bordered by small stones. A slate path was nestled into the grass of the lawn, slightly overgrown, but soft and inviting. The house itself was a faded purple, with wooden shingled siding, and diamond-paned windows whose dark wood shutters appeared functional and not just decorative. The roof branched off from itself, creating what looked from the ground like a maze of pitched roofs weaving along the top of the house. The entire front and sides of the property were surrounded by tall, old trees of varying species that covered the house and yard in a cool, calming shade. Lance bypassed the front door when he got out of Keith's car, heading farther along the driveway, then stopped, waiting.

“Oh, I should probably mention before we get inside that Xander's not the only one The Abuelas address differently. You’ll definitely be hearing them calling me Leandro, since it's actually my real name,” he said after a minute when Keith had caught up.

“Thanks for the warning. Why don’t you use it? It’s pretty and it suits you.” Keith didn’t need to see Lance to know his reaction. He could feel the flustered blush from 3 feet away.

“Oh, um, Adriana started calling me Lancelot when we were little, and then Bel did it when she was learning to talk, and it just kinda stuck. Speaking of my siblings,” he said, clearly changing the subject, “I'm surprised the house is so quiet on a Saturday. Oh, about the rest of my family. My Mamá Rosa will definitely be here, and Papá – Joaquin – will probably be around somewhere. My abuelos should be here, but you never know with them. And of course, The Abuelas will be here. There’s my Mamá’s mother, Abueli Elena, she’s the healer, and then Papá’s mother, my Abuelita Leonora.”

“Ok,” Keith nodded, noticing how quickly Lance had redirected the attention away from himself. But that was something to be addressed later, and followed the witch into a side door and inside the house.

The side door opened onto a small entrance room which led into a hallway. Keith’s senses were almost overwhelmed by the magic both in the air and ingrained into the very fabric of the house. But as soon as the feeling hit him, it subsided, and he was left with a warm, inviting feeling, one that asked him to stay. It was welcoming and caring and felt something like what he’d felt when he’d finally opened up and connected with Charlotte and Jillian for the first time. It felt like coming home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Greetings, critters! I actually kinda feel bad about having gone so long without an update. But! I do have the next chapter already outlined, so hopefully it won't be another month and a half before the next chapter. I haven't abandoned the story, not to worry.
> 
> Kudos, comments, send me a raven (hehe), whichever! I like knowing what the thoughts are :)
> 
> ~Corvus


	5. Awakening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _{dialogue text}_ indicates that the dialogue is in Spanish
> 
> ~*~_~*~_~*~
> 
> Trigger Warning for a mild panic attack.

I totally forgot to add the picture of Keith's witch mark in the last chapter, so here it is

~*~_~*~_~*~

A scent drifting down the hall tickled Keith’s senses. It immediately made him think of starlight and violets, the shimmer of silver, and whispering silk. He followed Lance and the scent to the kitchen where they found a petite, curvy woman no taller than Pidge standing over a clear quartz cauldron simmering gently on the stovetop. The potion was a pale violet that glowed gently and looked as though it contained a galaxy swirling through the transparent liquid. Keith watched Lance cross the kitchen to her, but was startled when he saw it happen again.

“Hey, Mamá,” Lance said as he walked up behind his mother, taking care not to crush the flower at the top of her long fluffy braid when he hugged her.

“Hi, mijo,” Rosa answered, her hand gently holding her son’s forearm, “Xander and Bel are out. Papá is out in the backyard with your abuelos, and Lita and Abueli are sitting in the sunporch. They’re waiting for you, off you go.”

“Thanks, Mami,” he said while leaving the room.

Keith started to follow, but Rosa stopped him, making him turn to face her.

“Please don’t be angry with him,” she said quietly, “But Lance told me about your past. With what happened with your parents and the things after that. He also told me about how you saved him without a second thought, and what happened after, and the trip you two took to your old house. I am so sorry you had to go through all that.” Despite her small stature, Rosa pulled him into a tight hug with practiced ease. “It’s not pity, it’s empathy. Please understand that no one here will ever judge you for it. Lance trusts you, and that’s more than enough for me.”

Keith melted into her mother’s touch, and the second he let go of his reactive tension, his equally reactive instincts flared. He could feel what she felt, and was at the edge of being overwhelmed with maternal love and a fierce protectiveness. She meant every word with her entire being and he knew it. What he didn’t know was that she had seen it when his vision happened. While she couldn’t be sure about what he saw, she had a fair idea given his double take at Lance walking across the kitchen to greet her. Lance had mentioned foresight as a possibility from what he'd said about the feeling he got just before pulling him out of the way of the drunk driver. She didn’t tell her son about the vision she’d had just before he called her about Keith and his potential senses. She had yet to make sense of it herself, and chose to keep quiet about it for now.

Rosa stepped back, gently squeezing Keith’s hands. “Go on. They’re waiting for you. I’ll be in when I'm done with this dreamwalking potion.”

She offered no explanation about the potion, but Keith just accepted it. He realized that he’d been doing a lot of that since the night before and wondered if his slowly awakening magic had anything to do with it. Just before he crossed the threshold into the hallway, Rosa called out to him.

“Don’t listen to what Lance says. Soulmates exist, he just doesn’t know it.”

Keith wasn’t sure how to take that, or what it meant, but he added it to the list of things he was accepting. He just turned back to her, met her gaze, noting that her blue had a touch of lavender to it, nodded once, and left the same way he’d seen Lance go. Rosa turned back to her brewing potion, a knowing smile curling her lips.

“Where’d you go?” Lance asked when Keith finally joined him just outside the sunroom.

“Nowhere. I never left the kitchen.” He sighed. “Your mother told me that you’d – explained – certain things to her about me and not to be upset with you about it. And I'm not. I really don’t tell my story to, well, anyone, but this is different. I feel like it needs to be out in the open.”

“Maybe, but I still should have asked you before I just did it. It’s not my story to tell. But as long as you’re not pissed at me for it. Well, anyway, The Abuelas are waiting.” The witch gestured dramatically at the closed door, bowing.

Keith laughed softly at the theatrics before he could stop himself. He could swear he saw the barest flush on Lance’s face as he held the door open and returned the gesture. It made him think of the the flustered blush he’d felt from Lance only a little while ago when he’d complimented the witch’s name, and Keith filed it away for later until he could decide what he wanted to do with this information. Instead, he answered dramatics with dramatics. “Lead the way.”

Elena and Leonora were sitting together in a pair of velveteen wingback armchairs. Leonora was idly turning the pages of a small green leather-bound book while Elena worked from the tray table in front of her, carefully selecting stems of dried herbs from the piles on the small table to tie together in bundles. Leonora closed her book with a snap, the volume disappearing when she did. Elena put the herbs down, the table shuffling off to tuck itself against the half-wall topped with windows that made up three quarters of the room. There was no mistaking Elena – Rosa looked almost exactly like a younger version of her mother. Like Rosa, Elena was petite, retaining the feminine curves she shared with her daughter. And like her daughter, Keith felt the warmth and protectiveness rolling off her. Leonora was thin, and despite being seated, Keith could tell she was tall. She looked severe, but there was a mischievous spark in her eye that said she was anything but. If Rosa had made him feel safe and welcome, it was nothing compared to the unspoken sentiments crashing into him from Elena and Leonora. Lance waved the loveseat that was sitting against the wall opposite his grandmothers closer, and it dutifully obeyed, gliding across the carpet. He and Keith sat, The Abuelas’ attention on them.

“No need to bother with formal introductions, Leandro. Rosa already told us everything,” Elena said, the sweet gentleness of her voice matching her outward demeanor.

The warm smile should have felt ill-fitted on Leonora, but instead it made it look as though her severity was the thing that didn’t belong. “Agreed. If you don’t mind our asking, what is your family name? It’s unheard of to suppress a child’s magic like yours has been.”

Lance knew he’d forgotten something when he’d called that morning.

Keith reached into the box still cocooned in his messenger bag without taking it out, retrieving the note. “It’s Kogane. I was found abandoned as a three-week-old newborn.” He turned the note over in his fingers, looking down at it before handing it to Leonora. “This was found with me.”

Lance’s paternal grandmother accepted the blue paper, feeling the residue of her grandson’s magic on it. “Leandro, I see you’ve already used your psychometry on this,” she said to Lance while unfolding the 26-year-old message. Leonora scanned over its contents twice before passing it over to Elena. _{Wasn’t this that family? The one whose son disappeared twenty-five years ago?}_

Elena looked the note over, studying the Keith’s name. _{It was. We should explain.}_

Leonora handed the refolded note back to Keith, who let it fall to the low table’s surface in front of him. “Your name is the name of an old witch family from Japan. Very old. They don’t often leave their homeland. About twenty-five years ago, one of the sons – Toru, the middle one, if I recall correctly – left home and eventually settled down around here. I’m not certain, but there may have been a woman involved.” She turned to Elena. “Please jump in if I forget something. _Was_ there a woman do you remember?”

Elena though it over. “No,” she said slowly, “Not that I remember either. But he disappeared suddenly and with no trace around this time of year, and no one’s seen or heard from him since.”

Keith and Lance both sat stunned at the story, but it clearly affected Keith more. He took a minute to find his voice, but he was still breathless. “I – I um – I’ll be twenty-six in a month. I was found at exactly three weeks old outside a firehouse. Someone had put me there intentionally with that note.”

The Abuelas shared a brief look, coming to the same conclusion. “It seems likely,” Elena began cautiously, “That Toru Kogane may be your father. There’s no way we could confirm that without finding him, but it’s more than possible. No other Koganes were in the area then. No one came looking for him.”

“I, um, the other thing that was with me was this,” Keith said, finally pulling out the midnight blue, fine wool baby blanket.

Both Leonora and Elena could feel the magic in it from where they were. They could tell, like Lance did, that there were several complex spells knit into the stitch patterns. Keith hands it over to them, and they spread it out between them, practiced fingers running over the stitches while speaking quietly to each other in Spanish.

“This will take a while, but we can figure out what spells were worked into this. I noticed the compulsion spell in the lace. We certainly won’t make you leave it here,” Leonora said, soft and gentle care threaded through her words like a verbal hug.

“Thanks, Lita,” Lance said before Keith could stumble over his words again, then turned to him. “I want to try something with you.”

He stood, motioning for Keith to do the same. The second his new – friend? This was neither the time nor the place to hope for anything more – followed suit, dropping his soft, black leather racing jacket on his messenger bag, exposing the blood red, v-neck tee that hugged his toned body, Lance sent the loveseat back against the wall, leaving the floor clear. He sat cross-legged on the soft carpet, motioning for Keith to join him, willfully ignoring how he felt about that shirt, especially on Keith.

“Come on, sit.”

Keith settled onto the floor, mirroring Lance. “What are we doing?”

“Meditation exercise.” He laid his hands palm up in the space where his calves crossed. “Hands down, palm up, and close your eyes.” He paused, noticing that Keith was already way ahead of him. “Oh, I see you’ve done this before.”

“Yeah, it’s something I learned in rehab. I still use it as a grounding technique when I need it.” He paused, tilting his head slightly, feeling Lance’s unease. “Oh, sorry,” Keith said quietly, “You felt uncomfortable. I don’t share my story easily, but once it’s out there, I don’t feel the need to hide anymore, y’know?”

“I – yeah, that makes sense. Anyway,” Lance said, shaking the discomfort off, “This is a little different from basic meditation. It’s good that you have the basics down, but emotional calming is only the first step. Second step is finding your magical core.” He shifted closer until their knees touched, then rested his hands over Keith’s still-open ones. “This might be a little difficult since your magic’s still suppressed, but whatever we can do is a start.”

Knowing that Lance is doing the same, Keith let his eyes close and focuses on his breathing. The slow, regular breaths were muscle memory by then, and he focused on letting his mind clear to find his center. Lance seemed to sense the moment it happened, and guided Keith through the rest of the exercise.

“Ok,” he said softly, “Somewhere in the warm darkness is a spark of light. Look for it. Open your senses and let it call you. You’ll know when it does.”

Keith hadn’t realized how tight his inner core was until he let it go. It unfurled like a blooming rose, the darkness and quiet, raw energy settling on and around him like an old, familiar blanket. And there it was. A low hum in his veins. A subtle tugging. A pull toward the core of the rose. He followed it, allowed it to lead him. There in the center of the velvety darkness he found his spark. Bright silver, with its own glow and barest shimmer of iridescence, sparkling and swirling and shifting. He reached out for it. The instant he made contact, the void around him exploded into the same polychrome cosmos he had found himself in the night before when he came in contact with Lance’s skin for the first time. But it’s different this time. Lance doesn’t let go. The stars call to Keith and he answers.

He was only vaguely aware of hushed voices around him and startled, astonished Spanish cursing from Lance. He opened his eyes to find the witch staring at him in shocked awe and realized that their hands were no longer touching. Lance’s hands were hovering a foot away from his own. Keith looked down and saw why. Twin clouds of sparkling stardust occupied the space, the same color as Keith’s spark. Lance took his hands away, the microcosms staying in place.

“That wasn’t me,” Lance said, barely above a whisper, “You did that. That’s your magic.”

Instinctively, Keith feels the need to protect his creation. He pulls it in, physically at first, cradling his tiny galaxies. But then he feels a shift from his core and pulls it in magically, the stardust swirling before sinking into his hands. Silver stars shot up his arms, pulled back to his core. He waited until it calmed before speaking.

“It feels…warm. Familiar. Like – like something old that I didn’t know was missing until I found it again.”

Lance breathed out a laugh, a small smile on his lips. “Yeah.”

Rosa stood up from where she’d been leaning against the door frame. “I think you’re right,” she said to her mother and mother-in-law, “I think it is Toru Kogane.” She turned to face Keith. “And if he is, I know exactly who your mother is.”

Elena snapped to look at her daughter. “Who?”

“Krolia Marmora,” she said, her tone hushed and reverent.

“If you’re right about this, then…” Leonora started.

“Sinéad made this,” Elena finished, her fingers running over the textured surface of Keith’s blanket.

The matriarchs returned to their study, more intensely than they had before. Lance waves the loveseat back over, and the three of them sat, Rosa between Lance and Keith.

“The Kogane line is old. Very old. But the Marmora line is older. Ancient. They come from Ireland, and were always coming and going between here and there. Both lines have never produced anything but exceptionally powerful witches. When Toru Kogane settled in the area, there were rumors that he’d taken something of an interest in Krolia. She and I were friends in our teens, but I lost contact with her. The only thing I knew was that barely a month after Toru disappeared, so did Krolia. But no one had really seen her in the months before that.”

“When – when did all of that happen?” Keith asked.

“Sometime around All Hallow’s Eve about twenty-five years ago.”

Keith filled in the missing pieces, even though he knew she already knew them. “And my twenty-sixth birthday is in a month. And I was found at three weeks old on November thirteenth.”

Lance retrieved the note from the table, passing it to his mother. Rosa looked it over, studied it, for a minute before handing it back. “I know you’ve already used your psychometry on this, but do it again? Please?” she asked, an edge of desperation and hope in her tone.

The actions of the previous night were repeated, Lance sending the paper to hover before spinning his index fingers in opposite directions around it, threads of silver wrapping around like an astrolabe. Soon enough, an image appeared in the spinning silver lines. A dark-haired woman was carrying a small bundle of soft blankets through a forest. Then she was in front of a fire station. A sheet of blue paper, folded twice, was pinned to the blanket. She laid the tiny bundle by the door of the fire house, then stood, backing away.

“They’ll never find you now,” she said in the barest whisper before turning and running back the way she had come. Her face was never visible in the image the note projected.

Rosa sat with a hand clamped over her mouth, the shock of recognition on her face. “That was definitely her. That was Krolia. But I don’t know who ‘they’ could be.”

Maybe it was because he’d been tired, maybe it was the length of time in between, or maybe it was everything else they’d talked about the night before, but Lance hadn’t made any kind of connection until then. he grabbed his small leather bag from the table, practically yanking his journal out to pull the torn page from where he’d left it and handed it to his mother.

“Does this look familiar at all?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, “But I can’t quite place it. Mm, no. I can’t remember where I've seen this before. Hold on, your Papá might know.” She let herself out by the door on the far side of the sunroom that led to the backyard. Rosa found her husband Joaquin sitting on the slate-paved patio, while his ritual-use-only sunstone recharged in the afternoon sun. _{Leandro is here with his new friend from last night. Do you recognize this? I can’t quite place it.}_

He took the torn page from her, studying the lines of the symbol briefly before standing up in a rush a charging into the sunroom. Rosa had told him everything that Lance explained during his phone call that morning, and he knew all about the fire, but not about that symbol. He slowed his pace when he approached the loveseat, but the sense of urgency and near-panic was still there.

 _{I need to know what happened. Tell me everything you know about the fire. Please, Leandro. It’s important,}_ he said, voice full of worry and fear.

Lance took a deep breath before starting. _{I’ve never felt evil like it. Ever. It was on both planes, physical and astral. Like a thick black smoke. I followed it and found that in a place where humans would never find it, and even if they did, they wouldn’t know what they were looking at. Whatever that is, I know it was what started the fire. But it didn’t have anything to do with why the house is still standing – that was Keith's suppressed magic.}_

Without thinking, Joaquin turned to Keith. _{Is there anything else about the fire you can tell me?}_ he asked gently.

Keith could feel his magic flare, trying to protect him from his own memories, but the panic settled in his bones. _{No. I can’t. I can’t-}_

He found Rosa kneeling in front of him, his face in her hands. “Shh, no, it’s ok. You don’t have to.”

Joaquin softens even more. “I’m sorry. It’s ok. We have more than enough to go on. But I do know what this is. I know this mark. It’s one of the marks associated with of a group of witches called The Fire of Purification. But no one’s heard from them in twenty-five years. They decided that they were above the Witches’ Council. Better than them. They decided that they could do the job better. But their methods were brutal. Cruel. They wielded dark magic and used it to threaten, harm, and kill. The Fire of Purification was terrible, but I have no idea why they would be after you.”

“I do. I’m almost certain his parents are Toru Kogane and Krolia Marmora. You know how _that group_ ,” she spits the words, “Was when it came to what they thought was acceptable. Mixing the Kogane and Marmora lines without their fingers in it would have been unacceptable to them.”

Lance shifted closer, placing a gentle hand on Keith's forearm. He felt the panic making Keith’s magic coat his skin in a buzz of power, but Lance sent a soothing pulse through, letting both Keith and his magic know that they were safe. “Would you be ok if I told them at least what I saw there?” he asked.

Keith had to think about it, but nodded, silently agreeing. Lance moved back to where he had been, Rosa herself on Keith’s other side, putting him between her and Lance. Joaquin summoned another wingback chair from across the room, placing it beside the loveseat before seating himself. The Abuelas stopped their study of Sinéad Marmora’s knitwork to listen.

“So, I've never seen what a totally burned house looks like, but this was bad. Both the first and second floors were gutted. Like, I only had a vague idea of what the rooms were. But all the weight-supporting parts were still there. They’re kinda burned, but not enough. And there are still some pieces of the outside walls, but not enough to hold anything up. But the attic is totally untouched.”

“And that’s where your bedroom was,” Rosa said to Keith.

He nodded tightly, his body vibrating with stress and panic, his speech evading him. He reached over and grabbed Lance’s hand, letting him know it was ok to continue.

“The fire stopped at the top of the stairs. There’s this short hallway from the stairs to the door, and it has smoke damage, but nothing’s burned. I saw that-” he pointed at the blanket spread across his grandmothers’ laps, “Before I saw the house. I thought at first that the fire stopping might have had something to do with that, but when I saw it, saw the damage from the fire, I knew that it wasn’t that. It was the suppressed magic that did it. But like, when we got up there, there wasn’t even dust anywhere. It didn’t look like it had been five years. That has to be tied to the suppressed magic too.”

Lance may have been able to feel the effects from where he and Keith were in physical contact, but Rosa was an Empath as well as a Seer, and she knew how much more upset he had become. She felt the pain and loss mixed with the oncoming panic attack. She could also feel how the Lance and Keith were beginning to feel about each other, especially in a moment of emotional vulnerability. Rosa pulled Keith against her, wrapping her arms around him like he was one of her own children. Lance never let go, and still didn’t, even when Elena reached across the table and calmed Keith’s body with a touch. He relaxed, melting into Rosa. It reminded him of Charlotte and Jillian, but in a good way. A way to remember them without the usual lingering pain. Lance still couldn’t bring himself to let go.

They stayed there like that for a full minute before Rosa spoke, breaking the silence. She knew Keith wasn’t in a good enough headspace to talk, so she directed her question to Lance. “Did he stay with you last night?”

“Yeah. I figured it was a good idea since we didn’t know if they could find him after we went back to the house.”

“I think it would be a good idea if he stayed with you until we can get him set up with wards and protections. I know it’s something you’re good at. As soon as possible. Tomorrow, maybe?”

“That’s what I was thinking,” he answered, “Oh! That’s another thing.” He gave Keith’s hand a gentle squeeze. “Can I show them your signature?”

“Yeah,” Keith said quietly. He let go of Lance and pulled his phone out from his jacket pocket, unlocking it before handing the device over to Lance. “Page’s still open.”

He opened the phone’s browser and the active tab was still Keith’s online store. He found the watercolor he was looking at before, and zoomed in on the signature, making it fill the screen. His parents and grandmothers went from curiosity to surprised staring when he turned it around.

“That’s a witch’s mark. That shouldn’t be possible with magic suppressed like that and especially growing up outside our world,” Joaquin said.

Lance agreed. “That’s what I said. There’s one now in a kinda hidden spot by the front door of Keith's apartment building. Not as good as a real ward, but it’ll work for now.” He paused, thinking. “Do we want to tell Rafael about this? I think we probably should. The Council should know that this Fire of Purification group isn’t as gone as they thought.”

Lance’s parents and grandmothers shared a look and a silent agreement. Joaquin placed a hand on Rosa’s shoulder. “I’ll make the call,” he says, excusing himself.

Lance and Rosa stayed where they were on either side of Keith, knowing that their presence was helping to ground him. Rosa continued to hold Keith, who only moved enough to find Lance’s hand again. They all passed the time quietly, Keith never moving from his spot, but Lance found himself physically drawn in, and ended up leaning into the newly awakened witch while they waited for his brother. Rafael was there in less than an hour.

“Lance, I think Keith would be more comfortable outside,” Rosa said when the side door opened. She rubbed Keith’s arm. “We know the story. You don’t have to be here for it all over again. Rafael may have some questions for you, but you don’t have to go through the whole story. We can do that.”

“Yeah, ok. Thanks,” he said, still not quite over the panic attack.

“Of course. Your mother was a friend. I know she wouldn’t have done any of this without a very good reason. We’re here for you.”

Keith hugged her before getting up to follow Lance out to the backyard. The backyard was the opposite of the front, open to the sun. There was another garden there, running along the smooth stone walls around the edge of the yard. A small patio area, separate from the one attached to the back of the house, was nestled against the wall, splitting the garden. This was where Lance took him, and Keith realized that he could actually see the ocean from there. Altea was a coastal city, but he hadn’t realized they were so close to the shore. They both stand there, soaking in the sun and sea view for a while.

Keith was the first to break the silence. He breathed a laugh, shaking his head. “I just realized that in different circumstances, we might have grown up together.”

Lance laughs aloud, a soft silvery sound. “Holy shit you're right. But we found each other now, even if it was by accident.”

“Yeah, we have. I just, I want to thank you for everything you’ve done since last night. I wouldn’t hesitate to do what I did all over again, but I don’t want you to think that you're responsible for taking this on personally. I'm not saying that I don’t appreciate it, I do. So very much so.”

Lance sighed, pulling himself up onto the wall. “I know it isn’t. But ignoring the part where I’d feel guilty for just either leaving you to it or passing you off to someone else, I feel like I have to see it through. I can’t explain it, I just know that it’s something I have to do.”

Keith was suddenly finding his newfound attraction that much harder to keep to himself, but he still found himself moving over to lean up against the wall beside Lance. “We don’t even know each other yet, and I want to. And I’m happy it’s you with me for all of this.”

Lance’s smile was a small and private thing. _Careful,_ he warned himself, _get to know him a little before heading into full crush territory._ Aloud he said, “Yeah, so am I. And whatever you need me for, I’ll be there.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Greetings, my magicals! Yay for a quicker update than the last time! Things are starting to get interesting now. But at least Keith will be learning about his magic now. And they're getting a little closer :)
> 
> In other news, Corvus now comes with Tumblr. Idk how much I'll end up posting there, but my plan is to use it to share writing and posting updates for knowing when to look for new chapters. Come see me at corvusrexwordpainter.tumblr.com
> 
> ~Corvus


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